Banque Misr, headed by Mohamed El-Etreby, has injected EGP 5bn into financing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from the end of May 2017 until the end of November 2017.
According to figures issued by the bank, these funds were injected in conjunction with the launch of the bank’s awareness campaign “Talaat Harb is back”, which aims to attract more segments of society to seek financing for their projects through the bank.
The bank added that its financing of these projects comes at the direction of the state, as it deems these projects’ impact on the national economy as very important, along with the importance of including young people, women, and various segments of society, in line with the requirements of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE). The bank predicts that its funding for such projects will reach about 20% of its total loan portfolio during the coming period.
“Banque Misr has worked on several axes aimed at increasing the financing of micro, small, and medium enterprises, including the development of its business systems and their restructuring, decentralisation of credit grants, and the development of the efficiency and capabilities of the employees providing financing services to these projects, through thousands of training hours. Also, the bank has increased the workforce in this sphere, by bringing about 150 new employees to work on [SMEs finacing],” according to the bank.
According to the bank, Beheira, Sharqeya, and Sohag were the governorates that received the most funding for microprojects, while the governorates of Sohag, Minya, and Kafr Al-Sheikh received the most for small projects, while medium ones were concentrated in Cairo, Giza, and Assiut.
The bank noted its success in financing SMEs, saying it affected the lives of about 400,000 people, including the families of the recipients of funding as well as other people working on these projects.
