“The bank is considering 2017 to be the year of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs),” said Hany Seif El-Nasr, chairperson of the Arab Investment Bank (AIBK). Seif El-Nasr noted that the initiative posed by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), which encourages banks to expand in financing SMEs, will push banks towards investing in this direction. It will also generate more jobs, increase domestic production to replace imported products, and increase exports of SMEs. Seif El-Nasr continued that as part of the AIBK’s interest in financing SMEs, it adopted a geographical expansion strategy. Seif El-Nasr emphasised that the focus of the new branches will be financing SMEs.

Source: Daily News Egypt January 21, 2017 16:05 UTC