Economy Minister: Small and Medium Enterprises Will Provide State Treasury with New Financial Resources

 Damascus, (ST) – Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade Dr. Mohammed Samer Al-Khalil discussed with the Board of Directors of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) the upcoming plans for the work of the Authority.

 During the first meeting of the Board of Directors of the SMEDA, Al-Khalil said that the government’s role is to support small and medium-sized enterprises and turn them into a regulated sector due to their specificity and ability to enter and improve the national economy and provide the state’s budget with new financial resources .

 For her part, the Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority, Solafa Aqili, spoke about the achievements made as well as the difficulties facing the Authority and made a number of suggestions to avoid difficulties and develop the work of the Authority.

 Mrs. Aqili explained that the Authority has developed a guide for small and medium enterprises which is currently being discussed with all stakeholders in preparation for approval with monitoring and evaluation of the performance of small and medium enterprises through the census project, which is working in cooperation with the Central Bureau of Statistics, in addition to the survey of small and medium projects, both agricultural in the country sides of Lattakia and Tartous and industrial projects as furniture industry in Damascus and its countryside.

 Mrs. Aqili pointed out that the Authority seeks to create a work environment for the development of the enterprise sector in order to transform it into a regulated sector by developing and providing an integrated legislative and administrative environment for this transformation and facilitating the access of these projects to the financial services leading to the organization and control of the finance market project and ensure the financial and technical support to the Authority to play its role and work to create a national network of incubators projects in various sectors and enable entrepreneurs to obtain business support services.

 The participants discussed the importance of setting limits and controls for small and medium enterprises that should be targeted to be sustainable projects that which the project is linked to other projects that create chains of added values and to put a standard of priority to the project that deserves support, the extent of productivity, the velocity of its revenue, operation of the work force  and income generating.

Sh. Kh.