NBE Cancels Plan To Finance Fish Farms

The National Bank of Egypt (NBE) said it will not finance fish farms to avert possible problems in the future after the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation announced it will remove all fish cages in the Nile.

Sources said the bank targeted to finance fish farms after signing a finance contract worth EGP 50 million with the Social Fund for Development (SFD). However, the bank cancelled such plan because some of the owners of fish farms became involved in problems with the government.

In other respect, NBE plans to sign finance contracts worth EGP 115 million with SFD in order to finance the second phase of poultry projects with interest of 8% and a maximum lending limit of EGP 15 million for each customer.

NBE offered finances worth EGP 890 million for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Q1 of FY 2012/2013. NBE’s portfolio of SME finance rose to EGP 8.6 billion at the end of June 2012 after providing about 8,700 SMEs with EGP 3.2 billion in FY 2011/2012. The total number of the bank’s SME customers reached 33,000.