By Walid Abdelazeem The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) revealed that by the end of 2011, the bank will have financed small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to a total amount of EGP 1.5 billion. Director of SME Finance Department at NBE, Soha Soliman, stated that funding for the SMEs portfolio amounted to EGP 3.3 billion by end of last year. Net funding granted by NBE reached EGP 1.5 billion during the last fiscal year, Soliman said, which was granted to 8700 clients. The total number of clients receiving financing to fund SMEs has reached 33,000. Moreover, the bank is studying the possibility of granting new finances after Eid El-Fitr. Soliman noted that the bank acquired EGP 3 billion in facilitated loans from lending institutions designated to 12 different entities. The bank is awaiting approval from the Social Fund for Development (SFD) to receive EGP 700 million, to be allocated for SMEs projects. Soliman confirmed that the bank is currently examining the funds it is granting to publishers of educational material to accurately assess the market's demand. Last month, the bank paid visits to eight chambers within the Federation of Egyptian Industries to study their fiscal condition. In an attempt to revive these industries, they proposed strategies for feasible financing programmes. Most of these industries were tremendously impacted by the recession, suffering significant decreases in revenues resulting from the failure of the national economy. NBE recently signed a co-operation agreement with the 10th of Ramadan Investors Association. The agreement allows the bank to propose their SMEs programmes for investors after having studied their fiscal requirements.
