The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) has announced the signing of a cooperation protocol with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), with the aim of providing non-financial services to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the industrial sector in Egypt.
Yehia Abou El-Fotouh, Vice Chairperson of the National Bank of Egypt, said that this agreement represents a new episode of fruitful and constructive cooperation between the National Bank of Egypt and the German Agency for International Cooperation in this field, which reflects the bank’s keenness to support small and medium enterprises, which is set by the bank’s management. He noted that when setting its strategies, the policies pursued by the National Bank of Egypt always seek to support the private sector, which focuses particularly on financing small and medium enterprises, as the bank’s total portfolio in this sector has reached more than EGP 150bn.
For his part, Younes Naguib, responsible for the private sector development programme at GIZ Egypt, expressed his pride in signing the protocol with the National Bank of Egypt, as it is the largest bank operating in Egypt, noting that empowering Egyptian industrial companies and providing technical support is one of the pillars of their work in Egypt. Egypt for the development of the private sector, pointing out that this cooperation comes within the framework of the interest of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) in partnership with the private sector and benefiting from joint resources to support and develop the sector.
Tarek Hassan, Head of the Small and Medium Enterprises Sector aat the National Bank of Egypt, confirmed that the activation of this agreement comes within the framework of the bank’s strategy towards providing technical support to owners of small and medium enterprises by providing a package of training programs funded by the German government aimed at supporting small and medium enterprises that produce intermediate products to supply companies and other production inputs operating in the industrial sectors, whether engineering, food, chemical and packaging, which raises the level of supply chains for companies and enables them to maintain their leadership in the Egyptian market.
