The Commercial International Bank (CIB) signed today its first contract with the Social Fund for Development (SFD) to finance small and medium poultry enterprises (SMEs). The project will support poultry sector through financing the establishment of new projects and helping existing projects to improve and expand which will in turn create job opportunities and increase production and income. The finance contract, which is worth EGP 100 million, will finance mainly the slaughters, table eggs farms, broiler breeding farms, chicken stores and animal feed processing machines. The bank offers such finance in its 156 branches spread across all governorates in Egypt. Ghada Wali, secretary general of SFD, said the poultry development project is an important project worth financing. SFD will cooperate with the Ministry of Agriculture to improve the poultry industry, she added. Such contract may be the last one to be signed by SFD and banks in 2012. The value of the finances offered by SFD to banks reached EGP 1.3 billion. CIB places SME sector among its top priorities as it is one of the most important sectors in the country, said Hisham Ramez, deputy chairman and managing director of CIB. Although the bank was known for financing large companies, CIB targets to expand in financing SMEs in the next period, he added. The bank will not only finance SMEs, bit it will also train customers on managing such enterprises, he concluded.
