On the sidelines of the third day of the ASEA's 16th Annual Conference, the Egyptian Exchange Chairman Mohamed Omran has stressed the importance of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector to the Egyptian market. Omran said the SMEs contribute around 60% of the national GDPs and employment. The EGX Chairman noted that the SMEs face major financing problems impeding their progress to become bigger entities. He further added that the big companies represent only 2% of the market and they also incur financing obstacles. Hence, the EGX management is trying to convince the firms, notably the SMEs, to issue IPOs and subscriptions in the bourse in order to have the adequate liquidity instead of resorting to banks to get loans. "If we manage to convince the firms and particularly the SMEs, the number of EGX-listed firms will increase and we will have a big capitalization contributes to enhancing the bourse's competitiveness in the international market." Omran explained "We must encourage the firms to make IPOs and subscriptions in the EGX. For instance, we can reduce the tax dues imposed on the listed firms." Referring to having a unified African bourse, Omran emphasized on the importance of communication and exerting more efforts with the stock exchanges so as to provide the technical tools necessary for the tie-up process among the markets. He asserted that it is pivotal to provide information technology infrastructure which represents the costly factor in making the tie-up process come into effect.
