Cairo – Mubasher: The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) plans to launch a fund to finance small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

This comes in light of expectations that the EGP 200 billion allocated to finance projects of this initiative will run out within few months, a reliable source at the CBE said.  

The source added that nearly $100 billion have been spent so far at an interest rate of 5% a year, according to the local news portal Masrawy.

The legal mechanism for launching the fund is being studied to offer its management to investment banks, the source indicated.