Arab Investment Bank mulls injecting $ 1bln into SME projects

State-run Arab Investment Bank seeks to pump one billion ($407 million) Egyptian pounds in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), head of SME Division announced Thursday.

The money will go for around 200 SME clients, Adel Taha – Head of SME Division at AIBK – said.

He further noted that the SMEs portfolio has registered 4 billion Egyptian pounds by the end of 2017 representing 40 percent of the total credit portfolio.

The bank also seeks to pump 1.8 billion Egyptian pounds in favour of (SMEs) during 2018.

In January, Egypt’s central bank launched an initiative to finance SMEs, and obliged banks to provide a minimum of 20 percent of their total loans portfolio to this sector within four years. Moreover, the CBE mandated that banks must submit a comprehensive outline indicating how they will implement the CBE’s recommendation.