About 2.2 million citizens received EGP 7.8bn worth of micro loans until the end of September 2017, according to Chairman of the Egyptian Union of Microfinance Mona Zulfikar.
Asked by Daily News Egypt to elaborate, Zulfikar said that 70% of clients who received these loans were females. She noted that repayment rate of these loans exceed 99%.
She added that the banks provided direct financing to the owners of these projects worth EGP 2bn, pointing out that the companies operating in this activity provided funds worth EGP 1.5bn, while the remaining balance was provided by the NGOs working in this activity.
Moreover, Zulfikar said that the union aims to reach 10 million clients with funding totalling EGP 30bn in five years.
She noted that the union has 782 member civil society organizations working in micro funding, next to three companies in the same field.
On Tuesday, Zulfikar signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Niven Gamea, CEO of the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Development Agency, to support and develop micro finance activity through NGOs.
Gamea said that the agency provided micro loans worth EGP 1.5bn in the first eight months of the current year, which is 53% higher from the same period last year.
She explained that these loans were channelled to 155,000 projects and provided 180,000 jobs, adding that the agency provides loans through 420 NGOs and five banks.
“The memorandum signed with the union contributes to expanding the funding of micro projects, through improving the capabilities of the NGOs supplying these loans. This is done through training and technical support that the agency and the union will provide to these NGOs, next to improving the financing potential to have the financing portfolio necessary to finance these projects,” she added.
According to Zulfikar, this cooperation is aimed at enabling 30 registered NGOs to move up from category C, in which funding portfolio is under EGP 10m, to category B, where portfolios are over EGP 10m and below EGP 50m, so that these NGOs can develop their activity and reach more clients.
