Middle East Online
By Saad Guerraoui – CASABLANCA
“Our main duty is to help young entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses”
Head of UNIDO-ITPO calls for larger participation of younger entrepreneurs in next year’s edition of Gulf-Moroccan Investment Forum.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) investors should invest in Morocco’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) because they have the potential and the will to succeed, Bahrain’s Hashim S. Hussein told Middle East Online.
Hussein, who is the head of United Nations Industrial Development Organization – Investment and Technology Promotion Office (UNIDO-ITPO)/ the Arab Regional Centre for Entrepreneurship and Investment Training (ARCEIT), stressed the key role played by Moroccan SMEs in the North African country’s economy.
“We are told that there are more than 800,000 SMEs in Morocco and that they contribute to 40 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product,” Hussein Middle East Online, adding that they are a dynamo for job creation.
Hussein called for a larger participation of younger entrepreneurs in next year’s edition of the Gulf-Moroccan Investment Forum.
“We will pump fresh blood into the next Forum through attracting younger entrepreneurs from both the GCC region and Morocco because they are the future,” he said.
“Our main duty is to help young entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses,” he added.
The fourth edition of the Gulf-Moroccan Investment Forum was held November 28-29 in Casablanca.
“In 2015, we will develop investment profiles in advance in order to lead to business-to-business (B2B) meetings in various sectors of interest,” said Hussein.
“A team will be created to develop next year’s activities and focus on issues of interest,” he noted.
Hussein called on Moroccan entrepreneurs to take part in the International Entrepreneurs Investment Forum (IEIF) 2015 that will be held January 19-21, 2015 in Bahrain.
IEIF will seek to promote investment, facilitate business linkages between entrepreneurs from around the world to exchange experiences and develop business partnerships among themselves.
Over 1,000 entrepreneurs from around the world are expected to attend IEIF.
Finance crucial for SMEs
Bahrain SMEs Society Chairman Abdulhasan Al-Dairi highlighted the importance of providing capital to SMEs to help them grow and sustain their businesses.
“Finance is very crucial for SMEs because without it they cannot survive in the market.” Dairi told Middle East Online on the sidelines of the Forum.
Dairi called for more banks to be involved in micro-financing
Dairi, who is also a board member of the Union of GCC Entrepreneurs, cited the example of Tamkeen initiative which has benefited more than 65,000 Bahrainis and enterprises in the private sector in Bahrain since its inception in 2006 as part of the Gulf kingdom’s national reform initiatives and Bahrain Economic Vision 2030.
Tamkeen is an initiative which is funded by the private sector for the private sector, seeking to foster the creation and development of enterprises and providing support to enhance the productivity and growth of enterprises and individuals in Bahrain.
Dairi called for more banks to be involved in micro-financing in order to boost entrepreneurship and achieve a sustainable business environment in Morocco.
He said that the Bahraini business delegation established some mutual agreements with some Moroccan entrepreneurs who “will send us their profiles in order to see how Bahraini investors will collaborate with them.”
He added that Bahraini entrepreneurs also established last week contacts with some of Morocco’s governmental and private entities to have mutual investment cooperation at the fifth Global Entrepreneurship Summit which was held last week in Marrakech.
