Egypt's Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA) has injected EGP 2.2bn into 51,000 projects in the governorate of Alexandria since July 2014, its chief executive said. Basel Rahmy stated that the financing, provided between July 2014 and May 2025, has created more than 110,000 jobs. Of the total funding, 102 million pounds were allocated to infrastructure, community development, and training projects, providing 718,000 workdays, he added. Rahmy's comments came during a meeting with Alexandria's Governor, Ahmed Khaled, to discuss enhancing cooperation and support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a focus on industrial projects in areas like Borg El Arab and Merghem. The meeting aligns with directives from Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly to increase financial, technical, and non-financial services for citizens, particularly youth, women, and recent graduates, and to support productive clusters, Rahmy said. He emphasized the agency's commitment to expanding access to financing for both existing and new projects, especiallyin the productive and industrial sectors, due to their importance to the national economy. Rahmy also noted the agency's efforts to educate project owners about supportive laws, including Law 6 of 2025, which offers significant tax benefits. These include a simplified tax rate starting at 0.4% of annual turnover for projects up to half a million pounds, rising to 1.5% for turnover between 10 million and 20 million pounds, along with exemptions from various other taxes and duties. For his part, Governor Khaled said that Alexandria possesses promising investment opportunities and is one of Egypt's most important industrial governorates. He added that the governorate is working to expand existing industrial activities and is cooperating effectively with MSMEDA to provide necessary financing and services to project owners. Khaled affirmed the continued cooperation with the agency, particularly in formalising informal projects to enable them to benefit from the advantages offered by Law 152 of 2020 on SME development. During the meeting, the governor and MSMEDA's chief executive presented direct lending cheques to five project owners and issued formalisation licenses and classification certificates to five others.
