The NilePreneurs Initiative — one of the initiatives of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) — announced on Sunday that it has helped more than 4,200 start-ups obtain financing totalling EGP 3bn through the business development service centres of the initiative.
Additionally, 1,767 other projects received assistance with their credit files to obtain financing totalling EGP 2bn.
Ahmed Hosny — Director of the Business Development Centres Programme at the NilePreneurs Initiative — said that this comes within the framework of the continuous support of the initiative launched by the CBE in 2019 to support entrepreneurs and youths in establishing their own projects or expanding them. This contributes to supporting industrialisation, increasing domestic production and export, and enhancing economic growth.
He added that the initiative’s business development centres are working to provide entrepreneurs and small business owners with non-financial services with the aim of improving their work environment and enabling young people to set up private projects, including knowledge dissemination services, training, financial analysis, assistance in establishing new projects, forming ideas, preparing feasibility studies, and preparing credit facilities, in addition to facilitating the registration process, obtaining licenses, and networking with investors.
Hosny pointed out that the CBE — in cooperation with the banks and entities participating in the initiative — is keen on providing these non-financial services to youths, entrepreneurs, and project owners. This stems from the belief that these services are no less important than providing financing.
He also noted that these centres are currently present in about 17 governorates and that there is a plan to increase the number of targeted governorates to help young people and entrepreneurs in various regions of the country benefit from them.
Furthermore, he explained that this expansion contributed to increasing the base of beneficiaries of these services to more than 58,000 beneficiaries — including 16,277 women — by the end of June 2022, compared to 27,000 beneficiaries at the end of June 2021 — an increase of 115%.
Additionally, a total of 149,000 services were provided by the end of June 2022, compared to 65,000 services in the same period in 2021 — an increase of 129%.
Hosy also explained that the programme provided by the end of last June about 47,573 knowledge dissemination services, 19,542 instances of preparing feasibility studies and business models, 18,219 project idea formation services, 17,781 training and capacity building services, 11,095 services for obtaining licenses, 1,0895 networking services with investors and suppliers, 9,832 facilitating access to finance services, 8,822 financial analysis and evaluation services, and 5,637 new project establishment services.
The efforts of these centres have also contributed to beneficiaries receiving more than 47,000 banking services and products, including 21,643 services for obtaining various payment cards, more than 14,000 electronic services — whether electronic wallets or internet banking — in addition to opening an account for more than 12,000 beneficiaries and the deployment of 370 points of sale.
Finally, he explained that 81 models for feasibility studies were prepared, covering various industrial activities, from which nearly 20,000 projects benefited and provided more than 85,000 job opportunities in various sectors.
