By Mahmoud Salah El-Din

Cairo – Mubasher: An Egyptian ministerial economic committee will deliberate on the bill facilitating SME financing within a week, said Minister of Trade and Industry Tarek Kabil.

The new bill was reviewed by the Central Bank of Egypt and the Ministry of Finance and will be submitted to the parliament after the government gives the green light, the minister added in SME entrepreneurship conference.

A new strategy, he continued, for developing SMEs will be adopted in the upcoming period, to which the government allocates EGP400 million.

Presently, SME entrepreneurs run 2.5 million enterprises in Egypt, which serve 75% of workforce and constitute 80% of Gross Domestic Product, the minister pointed out.   

He further emphasized that financing is the hugest rock regressing SMEs, let alone that 80% of entrepreneurs faces some obstacles with banks.

No doubt that such legislative and bureaucratic barriers prompt some entrepreneurs to prefer having non-registered business activities, the minister concluded.  

Translated by Ahmed El-Sayed Ali