The Industrial Development and Workers Bank of Egypt (IDBE) received EGP 47 million finance from the Social Fund for Development (SFD) as they had signed three contracts worth EGP 150 million to finance the projects of physicians and pharmacists, debit current account and industrial projects. The bank offered about EGP 290 million worth of finances to SMEs by the end of the first half of the current year, said Hamdi Azzam, board member at IDBE. The bank targeted to raise the value of SMEs finance portfolio to EGP 350 million by the end of 2012, but the bank's improved financial results in the first half of 2012 has encouraged the bank to raise target to EGP 500 million. Azzam added that the bank signed two contracts worth EGP 50 million with SFD to finance live stock and young entrepreneur projects. After signing a franchise finance contract worth EGP 30 million with SFD, IDBE approved offering franchise finance worth EGP 5 million to a customer planning to have a food-franchise business. The customer has an outlet selling food for factories and companies in Obour and plans to establish 20 outlets, equipped with fridges and all other requirements, Azzam added. The Bank studied the projects and decided to give the customer EGP 250,000 for each project after finalizing all procedures. The Bank's customers in SMEs sector increased to 200, up from 102 customers in last September. It is worth mentioning that Industrial Development and Workers Bank of Egypt succeeded in achieving profit of EGP 28 million for the first time after eight years of successive losses. The bank targets to achieve profit of EGP 50 million by the end of 2012.
