This was stated by Nabeel bin Abdullah Al-Mubarak, general manager of small and medium enterprises in the Saudi Credit Bureau (Simah), at a seminar in Riyadh.
The Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry organized the event in association with Simah.
Al-Mubarak said SMEs need easier access to credit and described the Taqyeem scheme, to be launched next month, as a critical step to develop SMEs.
Khalaf bin Rabah Al-Shammari, a member of the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry board, welcomed the lecturer and thanked him for his critical contribution.
He also called for more strategic cooperation between the chamber and Simah.
Al-Mubarak said Taqyeem is the first comprehensive project to in evaluate SMEs and Simah was cooperating with global credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s for a study to analyze the situation and other factors.
Al-Mubarak said the project aims at studying all aspects. Financial, economic, administrative and strategic issues that are related to the SMEs are likely to be reviewed.
Simah focus on all basic data and noted the banks’ reluctance to provide loans as they lacked vital information from SMEs. The funding challenges faced by SMEs were also reviewed.
He said Taqyeem would help the deserving SMEs to gather financial support by providing more tools and mechanisms for the bankers to assess credit risks. There are also moves to raise the level of economy transparency.
He said Taqyeem would seek to slash the costs of credit by providing updated data for the lending institutions so that they would be in a better position to evaluate risks and possible returns.
