SMEs join beneficiaries of financing initiative

Small and Medium enterprises are now the latest addition to a list of beneficiaries of a financing initiative by the Central Bank of Egypt. The Initiative provides loans at an 8% decreasing interest to support different sectors of the economy amid COVID-19 pandemic.

The initiative was initially a financing support to the agricultural and industrial sectors providing them loans at a decreasing interest of 10%, this was in December of last year before the corona virus hit.

At the wake of the crisis, the CBE included more sectors and decreased the rate to 8%. The financing support given so far reaches up to EGP 700 billion and covering SMEs, industry, agriculture, real estate, real estate developers, housing for limited income as well as the most hit sector, tourism.

The support in some cases included removing debts and delaying loan repayments.

CBE had announced several support packages to the tourism sector including an EGP 3 billion to pay salaries of workers in the sector. Tourism facilities were also given a pass on paying real estate taxes for 6 months.

The bank had also announced that to benefit from the support, the entity must have the same number of workers compared to December 2019 without reducing workers.