Egypt's second largest bank, state-owned Banque Misr has recently approved to lend two local firms around 130 million Egyptian pounds ($7.3 million), a banking source said Sunday. One of the borrowers is a major pharmaceutical corporation, which will get 100 million pounds from Banque Misr, the source further told Amwal Al Ghad. The second borrower falls into the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) category, working in the construction sector, the source said. The second loan will be according to the central bank's SMEs initiative. Banque Misr's loans portfolio stood at 165 billion pounds at the end of last March.
