Banque Misr's strategy for the current fiscal year 2013/2014 targets expanding in financing small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The second-largest bank in Egypt seeks financing portfolio for SMEs to total EGP 1.5 billion by the end of FY2013/14, compared to EGP 900 million in 2013. In an interview with Amwal Al Ghad, Vice Chairman of Banque Misr Mohamed Abbas Fayed states that his bank's strategy focuses on giving credit grants through its nation-wide branches. The Egyptian central bank is preparing to launch a new initiative to enhance the SMEs, aiming to allure local banks to expand in financing this vital sector. According to experts and specialists, the SMEs sector is the only one capable of extricating the Egyptian economy from its current bottleneck and addressing the problem of rising youth unemployment through creating job opportunities by using low-cost capitals. Meanwhile, Banque Misr's total loans grew by 12.1% to hit EGP 50 million by the end of June 2013, against EGP 44.1 billion for the same period in 2012. The market share reached 9%.
