Friday 13 / September / 2024
Muscat: Since its inception, the Inma Fund has financed 1,200 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) worth OMR125 million in the Sultanate of Oman.
Sheikh Salah bin Hilal Al-Ma’awali, CEO of the Inma Fund, further confirmed that the total amount allocated for financing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for the current year amounts to OMR20 million, to be distributed among the fund’s branches across Sohar, Salalah and Muscat.
He said in a statement to Oman News Agency that the fund began receiving financing requests for the current year to take advantage of the financing products and services provided by the Inma Fund to SME entrepreneurs and owners following the previously applied mechanism to qualify for a benefit from financing services to support their commercial projects.
He pointed out that the Inma Fund financed a number of economic sectors in the Sultanate of Oman, led by the industrial sector at 20 per cent, followed by the services sector at 19 per cent, the transportation and logistics sector at 16 per cent, the infrastructure sector at 15 per cent, and the trade sector at5 10 per cent, followed by the tourism sector at 9 per cent, and the oil and gas sector at 8 per cent.
Salah Al-Maawali explained that the sectors financed by the Inma Fund in various governorates of Oman were able to increase their production lines and provide a number of products and services to the local market. This contributed to revitalising the economic movement and increasing cash flows.
He said, "The Inma Fund pays great attention to small and medium enterprises, as it identified in its plan for this year a group of sectors in which work and investment will be encouraged and directed owners of small and medium enterprises to focus on them, foremost of which is the tourism sector, and the service and infrastructure sectors, transportation, oil and gas, industry and trade. Because of the importance of these sectors in economic growth."
He explained that last year, the fund allocated OMR18 million for financing small and medium enterprises, and at the end of the year, it was able to achieve financing results that exceeded the allocated amount, as it financed 144 small and medium projects with a total of OMR20 million, and the industrial sector topped the sectors most funded by 20 per cent.
He further stressed that the Inma Fund continues to provide its financing products, the most important of which are asset financing, project financing, and working capital financing, with a financing ceiling ranging from OMR50,000 to OMR2 million with a repayment period of up to 8 years for most of the financing products it provides, explaining that the fund had added recently Islamic finance options also.
