Managing Director of Social Fund for Development (SFD) Soha Soliman and Head of the Egyptian Federation for Construction and Building Contractors (EFCBC) Hassan Abdel-Aziz will participate in the Partnership for Development Initiative's third event, which will discuss the role of the leasing sector in supporting national mega and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) projects. The conference, scheduled for 10 November is organised by Excellent Communications in cooperation with the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA). It will be sponsored by several ministries, including those of Investment and of Communications and IT, in the presence of large scale officials, representatives of local and international leasing finance companies, banks, and local and global leasing experts. One of the conference panels will discuss the leasing sector's positive impact on SMEs, in addition to the SFD's role in supporting the leasing finance companies. SFD raised the credit line for leasing finance companies to EGP 25 million instead of EGP 10 million. The conference will also discuss the importance of leasing as a mechanism to support small companies. Most SMEs in Egypt face challenges to attain permanent adequate financing services to fill the needs of their working and fixed capitals. The event will support the state's concern to focus on the SME sector, which is considered the backbone of economic development for both developed and developing nations. SMEs play a vital role in combating unemployment, boosting the industrial added value, enhancing large national industries, and upgrading the competitiveness of the production sector. They contribute 80% to Egypt's GDP, representing more than 90% of the private sector projects and employing 65-75 percent of the state's labour. During the conference's final session, EFCBC will discuss the role of the leasing sector in supporting contracting firms to execute the state's national projects. The leasing sector can provide new financing mechanisms to upgrade the contracting firms' equipments and to enable them to purchase large machines to fit with the currently-launched infrastructure projects. EFCBC will also discuss whether the contractors will be able to make use of the available funds by leasing firms or not. Those funds will lead to boost the companies' business volume and solve their financial problems as they are classified among the high-risk economic activities besides suffering from complicated procedures and regulations imposed by banks to get necessary funds. Meanwhile, the leasing sector registered a significant growth of 227% in the first seven months of 2015, with contracts worth EGP 11.3bn and 25 active firms are currently working in the field. The Partnership for Development Initiative is the first of its kind in Egypt aiming to bolster a sustainable partnership between the private sector, the state, the civil society, and mass media. This initiative will hold a number of major conferences and workshops annually to devise a position that plays a prominent role in identifying the government's policies related to economy, legislation, laws, and measures to reform business climate in Egypt. It aims to reach a strategic vision for the shape of partnership between the government and the private sector in order to achieve comprehensive development goals.
