The Agricultural Bank of Egypt (ABE) concluded the third quarter of this year with significant growth in loans allocated to funding SME activities. The bank stimulates various productive sectors to create a competitive national industry in all fields, enhancing local production and supporting the national economy.
According to the bank’s business results, the funding volume for small enterprises amounted to EGP 5.8bn, benefiting 5,958 small enterprises in September 2024. The volume of funding medium enterprises amounted to EGP 5.9bn for 157 companies. In addition, 426,000 micro-activities were financed with about EGP 34bn. This confirms the bank’s keenness to become one of the largest banks supporting and financing MSMEs.
Alternatively, the bank’s role in financing major enterprises and companies has grown. The number of major companies operating in the agricultural and industrial sectors increased from 154 with a financing volume of about EGP 14.8bn in September 2023 to 203 companies in September 2024 with a financing volume of about EGP 20.7bn, including about EGP 895m worth of joint loans in cooperation with other banks.
During the third quarter of 2024, the bank diversified its loan portfolio to include expanding lending to activities and industrial, commercial and service projects, in addition to its main role as one of the largest banks specialising in developing and financing the agricultural sector and related activities and industries. This is part of the bank’s new strategy to provide the highest quality banking and financing services.
Believing in the bank’s role in providing foreign currencies and supporting the national economy by encouraging foreign trade and export operations and opening new market horizons for Egyptian products, the bank has doubled its efforts to support foreign trade operations by facilitating the procedures to open documentary credits and collection fee documents. The total foreign currency arranged from January 2024 to September 2024 amounted to $125m. The mechanism and flexibility of foreign currency pricing helped the bank obtain foreign currency concessions amounting to about $127.6m in the same period.
Similarly, loans allocated to funding the agricultural sector and other related industries and production activities make up about 80% of the bank’s credit portfolio. The bank doubled the financing allocated to produce crops this year, which small-scale farmers obtain at an interest rate of 5%.
Consequently, the volume of financing the agricultural crop loans portfolio reached EGP 25.6bn, benefiting about 252,000 farmers in all Egyptian governorates, an increase of EGP 8.2bn compared to the same period last year, where the financing volume amounted to EGP 17.4bn in September 2023.
The bank also managed to double the value of the loan categories for all crops during the recent period more than once by rates ranging between 25% and 70% in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture.
Contractual agriculture also received a large share in the bank’s policies and work plans, which boosted the funding to EGP 2.9bn in the third quarter of this year.
The bank has also taken several measures to facilitate farmers’ access to agricultural production loans and accelerate the pace of grants through several online applications. These online platforms allow customers to apply for an agricultural loan by registering with the electronic farmer card at any time and anywhere with ease.
