United Bank will sign an Islamic finance contract with value of EGP 75 million with Social Fund for Development (SFD) next week, as part of SFD's efforts towards offering Islamic finance to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Essam El Korashy, head of SMEs Development Department, said this is the first Islamic finance signed by SFD in compliance with Murabaha system, adding that the Fund plans to sign contracts with value of EGP 310 million with 5 banks to finance SMEs in compliance with Murabaha system. SFD negotiates with Industrial Development and Workers Bank of Egypt over signing an Islamic finance contract with value of EGP 100 million, with National Bank of Abu Dhabi over EGP 30 million contract, with Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit over EGP 150 million contract and with National Bank of Egypt over EGP 100 million contract. SFD signed finance contracts with value of EGP 400 million to 6,000 projects that provided 20,000 job vacancies in the first quarter. El Korashy added that the Fund targets increasing SMEs portfolio to EGP 5 billion by the end of the current year, up from EGP 4 billion at the end of last March, noting that micro-enterprises portfolio reached EGP 400 million.
