Nevine Gamea, the Minister of Trade and Industry and Executive Director of the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise Development Agency (MSMEDA), has revealed that the agency pumped funds amounting to EGP 6.2bn to support the small and micro enterprises sector, which financed about 178,000 projects, providing about 368,000 new job opportunities between 1 January to 30 November 2021. She explained that, with the help of MSMEDA, various industrial, commercial, service, animal, and liberal sectors were financed, pointing out that people between 30 to 40 years of age received 36% of this funding. Gamea indicated that the agency is now working, in cooperation with various state agencies, to implement the political leadership's directives to provide more facilities to the small projects sector by activating the Projects Development Law 152/2020 and its executive regulations. The law and its regulations were prepared by MSMEDA in cooperation with 25 government agencies and a number of institutions and NGOs with the aim of simplifying the procedures to establish small projects and obtain the necessary licenses for their establishment. The law also mandates the Ministry of Finance to implement tax incentives that will start working from the date of submitting the new tax returns. Gamea confirmed that the owners of existing projects have already started applying to the branches of the agency in all governorates to issue a classification certificate with the aim of taking advantage of the various benefits offered by state agencies in accordance with the law. So far, one-stop-shop units at 33 branches across Egypt issued 9,000 classification certificates, 7,321 final licenses for new projects, 8,696 temporary licenses for new projects, 3,899 tax cards, 503 commercial registrations, and 3,301 facility numbers. The minister explained that MSMEDA has also begun implementing the political leadership's directives with the help of projects operating in the informal sector to introduce said projects to the formal economy. She indicated that the agency's branches have so far issued more than 1,000 final licenses to legalise the status of the applicants, and 2,300 temporary licenses whose owners will be assisted in their transition to the formal economy. Gamea added that the agency — in cooperation with the Ministries of Higher Education, Youth and Sports, Manpower, Social Solidarity; and the International Labour Organization — has provided free training courses to citizens, as 373 training courses were organised to develop entrepreneurship skills, during which more than 8,000 young men and women were trained on the principles of entrepreneurship. The MSMEDA also organised 600 seminars to raise awareness regarding entrepreneurship which were attended by more than 28,000 citizens. Furthermore, the minister said that during the same period — despite the pandemic — the agency organised 116 exhibitions in which 4,090 exhibitors participated and succeeded in achieving sales amounting to EGP 151m in addition to concluding indirect contracts. Moreover, more than 2,600 projects were documented in the register of government agencies and submitted tenders worth more than EGP 353m. On the role of the agency in the Presidential Decent Life Initiative for the development of the Egyptian countryside, Gamea said that the agency pumped nearly EGP 900m into the initiative, funding 32,000 projects and creating 61,000 jobs. The minister added that the agency also contributed to the implementation of labour-intensive projects to provide employment opportunities for irregular workers and to provide a better environment that would help expand the financing of small and micro projects.
