Banks in Egypt extended more loans to small and medium-sized firms during 1H19, heeding the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) SME initiative launched in 2016, a top banking official said Monday. By mid-2019, the amount of loans to small and medium-sized enterprises at banks in Egypt rose to around EGP146bn (USD9bn) since 2016, Banque Misr Chairman Mohamed El-Etreby said. “We hope the amount would reach 200 billion pounds at the end of this year,” El-Etreby said at a workshop organised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) in Cairo on Monday. Boosting SME lending has been a top priority for Egypt’s government and the CBE, given the crucial role these industries play in creating jobs, promoting financial inclusion and reducing poverty, he added. In 2016, the CBE launched an initiative to encourage SME financing, saying that banks were required to allocate 20% of their total credit portfolios to financing projects until 2020. The banks were to offer around EGP200bn to finance 350,000 companies and, thus, create job opportunities to more than 4mn people.