In light of the Italian-Egyptian business council meetings as part of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's visit to Italy, AlexBank – a member of Intesa Sanpaolo Group - signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Industrial Cooperation and Promotion to promote the SME sector in Egypt. The MOU was signed between each of Maurizio Barracco- Vice Chairman Acting as Chairman of the Board of Directors of AlexBank; the Italian Minister of Industry and Trade; Egyptian Minister of Investment, Ashraf Salman and Egyptian Minister of Trade and Industry, Mounir Fakhry. AlexBAnk- Intesa Sanpaolo along with the other two signing parties identified their areas of cooperation in the MOU. They agreed on promoting to SMEs the benefits of being banked and the need to formalize their business practices as well as the development and execution of a specified number of local and international workshops and seminars to enhance the technical and managerial skills of potential and existing SMEs. From his side, Roberto Vercelli, CEO of ALEXBANK stated, "We believe that the MOU is a testimony to the bank's leading position in the SME sector. In a country with less than 10% banking penetration and an economy that is poised to grow, we are well aware of all these challenges and know how to confront them and we contribute to finding solutions to end them. We have the most active SME funding unit in the Egyptian banking sector and we believe that the SMEs will become the growth locomotive." He added "We believe that this MOU could help to elevate the general level of financial literacy in Egypt as we see Alexbank's role as as an advisor, educator and also a financier." The parties' cooperation objectives also included exploring opportunities for cross-border knowledge sharing, technical and best practice visits and missions between both countries. Moreover, they agreed on exploring the development of a digital portal, co-developed between all parties to serve as a functional resource for SMEs to access business templates, tutorials and case studies to be used to promote the growth, competence and development of small and medium-sized enterprises in Egypt A Joint Committee composed of a representative member of each of the parties will establish a schedule of meetings to be held in Egypt, on a quarterly basis. The JC will have the mission to establish an annual program and the projects and actions to pursue the objectives of this Memorandum of Understanding, and to assess the state of the bilateral cooperation in the identified fields.
