Egypt Hosts 4 African States to Enforce Cooperation on MSE Dev't

Egypt hosted four African Countries to enforce cooperation on the development of micro and small enterprises (MSEs).

"Enforcing economic cooperation with the African continent is an action priority for the Egyptian Government and agrees with the presidential orientations that call for encouraging investments and striking economic and trade integration among African countries and Egypt," Minister of Trade and Industry and MSMEDA's Executive Director Nevine Gamea said.

“This cooperation is based on transferring Egypt’s experience on developing MSEs, creating the enabling legislative and organizational environment, introducing easy-term finance, providing technical and marketing services, enhancing manufacturing and operational skills of entrepreneurs, and studying the needs of African markets to Egyptian products…,” Gamea added.

These statements were made during a visit made by an African delegation comprising representatives of four development institutions, namely Cameron, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Comoros to MSMEDA to acquaint with its experience on MSEs development through Islamic finance.

During the visit, the African representatives had first-hand information about the successful enterprises MSMEDA that has been implemented in cooperation with the Islamic Bank for Development through the Youth Employment Support (YES) Project.

Around 2555 enterprises have been funded at 906 million Egyptian Pounds creating more than 20 thousand job opportunities, according to the project.

The delegation has also inspected the “MSMEDA” project, which has been implemented in conjunction with Misr El Kheir Foundation. It was on livestock development through Ard El Kheir Project according to which more than 1800 clients have been funded in the governorates of New Valley, Assiut, Tour City in South Sinai, and El Wahat El Baharia in Giza.

Later, MSMEDA Qualibia Branch received the delegation and informed representatives about MSMEDA's mechanisms and experience in launching the One-Stop-Shop (OSS) model to assist clients in getting the documents needed for their enterprises.

The delegation has wrapped up the visit by getting familiarized with MSMEDA's activities on MSE finance and non-financial services.

The services included training courses on entrepreneurship development and specialized programs on upgrading handicraft and marketing skills, together with community infrastructure projects that generate daily jobs for casual workers.