The Business Development Services Centres of the NilePreneurs Initiative has completed more than 75 integrated feasibility studies on various industrial activities.
NilePreneurs is a nationwide initiative started in 2019 and powered by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) and the Egyptian Banking Sector, to support startups and SMEs in the domains of manufacturing, agriculture, and digital transformation through applying different innovation instruments.
Ahmed Hosni — Director of the Business Development Service Centres at the initiative — said that diversity was taken into account when preparing these studies in order to cover most of the different industrial sectors with more than 30 industrial and productive activities, including leather industries, electrical, metal, and chemical equipment; clothing and textiles; glass; food products; computer equipment; etc.
Hosni added that there is a methodology in preparing feasibility studies that depends primarily on meeting the needs of the target groups of young people, entrepreneurs, and graduates in the stage of forming project ideas and how to implement them with a focus on priority projects that are targeted by the state as a basis for business expansion, especially in the field of industry and local product support.
He added that the requirements of the Industrial Development Authority and the projects it offers are being studied, and feasibility studies are being prepared for these proposed activities and made available to those wishing to obtain industrial lands from the authority’s side to help them implement these projects.
This contributes to achieving integration between the state’s approach in offering lands, spreading specific industries within a targeted map of the industry, and between the services of business development centres to meet the needs of the market.
Hosni stressed that feasibility studies are not limited to priority projects, as flexibility was also taken into account when preparing these studies for the possibility of adjusting them according to the status of each project in order to help entrepreneurs determine the feasibility of the project, the quality of the labour used, the appropriate production methods for the process, and determine the type of machinery and technology used. The financial study also determines the investment cost and funding sources and introduces entrepreneurs to it.
He also confirmed that feasibility studies enable the entrepreneur to benefit from the initiatives presented by the CBE — whether the initiative to support the industry with a decreasing return of 8%; or small, medium, and micro enterprises with a decreasing return of 5% — as well as raising awareness of bank payment tools and their use. This will reflect positively on financial inclusion strategies.
It is worth noting that the Business Development Services Centres have provided since their inception in July 2019 until the end of last March 2022 more than 15,000 services for preparing and reviewing feasibility studies, plans, and various business models, which helped provide more than 73,000 job opportunities and helped obtain financing with a value of about EGP 2.7bn in commercial, service, industrial, construction, contracting, agricultural, and agricultural manufacturing activities.
