The small and micro-enterprises sector has received great attention from the government over the past years, intending to achieve sustainable development and fight poverty. Several initiatives and programs have been launched to stimulate microfinance and facilitate access to it.

These initiatives have contributed to pumping massive funds to establish thousands of projects that have succeeded in combating unemployment and youth employment, but despite this, this sector still faces some challenges that hinder the expansion of its participation in the economic development processes.

  In this convention CEBC & ECIC had the honor to host Dr. Hanaa El Helaly; Executive Advisor to the Chairman – EALB & Chair – CEBC SMEs & International Cooperation Committee & Dr. Nevine Badr El Din; Director of Micro Finance Central Sector – Medium, Small & Micro Enterprise Development Authority, Dr. Reham Farouk; CEO – Al Tadamun Microfinance Foundation and Dr. Gamal Khalifa; Director, Institutional Upgrade Project, Egyptian Microfinance Federation discussing the topic “The Role of Microfinance in Reducing Poverty and Achieving Sustainable Development”.

  In the opening remarks Dr. Hanaa El Helaly; Executive Advisor to the Chairman – EALB & Chair for CEBC SMEs & International Cooperation Committee; on behalf of CEBC & ECIC and Eng. Motaz Raslan she welcomed all reputable attendees in participating in this Small, Medium, and Micro Enterprises Committee, and she also thanked Canada Egypt Business Council for holding this symposium during these vital circumstances and challenges worldwide due to Coronavirus. She emphasized that it’s a privilege to be moderating this essential topic The Role of Microfinance in Reducing Poverty and Achieving Sustainable Development; then welcomed and represented our respectable hosts.

She praised to begin the discussion with the sustainable development and International cooperation; as she’s an advisor and member in the global forum for sustainable development. She stated that there are 17 SDGs freed by the United Nations in New York; the first pillar in this SDG is poverty and we will tackle how we microfinance it and the very important role of the community for the development of small, medium and micro enterprises.

 Then she gave the microphone to Dr. Nevine Badr El Din; Director of Micro Finance Central Sector Medium, Small & Micro Enterprise Development Authority. She said; it’s an honor to participate in that particular kind of discussion thanking CEBC & ECIC & Dr. Hanaa for this invitation. She exhilarated in introduce to you Al-Tadamun Foundation strategy and goals; the foundation tend to help entrepreneurs especially the potentials of women in all governorates’ of Egypt and was established long time ago having an entity that offers services exclusively to women. The Foundation believes that developing the microfinance industry would help in having a better future.

She added unlike men, women always spend all that they earn on their families so, Al-Tadamun offers its services to women to raise their standard of living and that of their families. We have now 67 branches covering 11 governorates in December 2019, more than 175,000 clients, more than 550 million EGP outstanding portfolio and more than 1500 employees. Our dream is to serve one million clients and our target is to increase the number of branches to 250 covering the entire governorates’ of Egypt.

She said the Foundation in the beginning faced some challenges in accepting the idea to have a female branch manager; on the false presumption that men have stronger personalities, and better in problem solving skills but our female senior coordinator proved that she can carry out the role of the branch manager.

She then pointed out that Al-Tadamun Foundation has three different products; group loan product, individual loan product and recently family loan product. The family product depends not on offering financial loan but on providing machines (ex: sewing machine), equipment or vehicles (ex: motorcycle), that would help the family to increase their income or improve their project. The group product; is offered to a group of 5 to 9 clients as for the individual product; is suitable for the ones who has a small project such as breeding cattle or grocery shop…etc.

  Dr. Gamal Khalifa director, Institutional Upgrade Project, Egyptian Microfinance Federation; talked about transforming the small and medium-sized enterprise sector from cash to electronic use. And that there is a law from this March that will require electronic use only.

And then he talked about the central bank project and the financial control body and the union to finance micro-projects and how to take an institutional structure to grow in it and then attract banks to finance them and increase the number of their customers.

He then pointed out that the number of micro finance associations is 950 of them 900 small associations spread in all the governorates of Egypt and thus they can reach more customers.

Associations are selected from category C, the third category, which has a loan portfolio of about 15 million or less and help them move to a higher category later. Forty-one associations have been selected so far.

  Dr. Nevine Badr El Din director of Micro Finance Central Sector – Medium, Small & Micro Enterprise Development Authority; mentioned that some of the laws and legislation that have been amended, including law 141 to control the financing activity of the micro-finance, which was amended in the year 2020 where small and medium enterprises were included in the financing of micro-projects to have a monitoring body to monitor all project activities.

Then she talked about law 152 for the year 2020, which is specific to the development of projects, and this law contains very many incentives for the informal sector to enter the official domain to positively affect economic development. Consequently the application of this law there will be many incentives to support and develop illegal projects to enter the official domain.

At the end, she said that the central bank has issued a decision to intervene with banks to support this sector by 20 to 25%.

Then the floor was then opened for questions and answers session.