Thursday 10 / October / 2024
Muscat: The Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (ASMED) has issued amendments to the regulation governing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and artisans’ businesses. The step introduces the necessary flexibility to develop SMEs and sustain their growth.
The amendments will also encourage entrepreneurs to launch and expand their projects locally and abroad, besides motivating job seekers to explore opportunities in the entrepreneurial sector. The outcome will reflect positively on raising the contribution of SMEs and start-ups to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The amendments augment the value of the loan ceiling, without adding administrative fees. This applies to investments seeking as much as OMR20,000 of funding, compared to a previous cap of OMR5,000 beyond which the fees are added.
The amendments cancel the maximum value of a loan value while determining the loan’s value in financing programmes that are issued following the nature of each financing programme.
The amendments also lift the ban on the upper limit on the legal age of an applicant for financing through the ASMED. Yet the amendments retain the upper age limit condition in specific determinants for each financing programme.
ASMED statistics show that 170 applications received funding approvals to the tune of more than OMR15,777,431.
The funding approvals cover four different programmes: A programme for financing industrial projects and service projects (110 applications, worth OMR11,490,905), a programme for financing contracts (33 applications, worth OMR2,877,000), a programme for funding working capital and fixed assets (26 applications, worth OMR1,339,526) and a programme for financing business incubators and accelerators (one application worth OMR70,000).
The Governorate of Muscat took the lead in terms of approved funding of businesses (63 applications worth OMR4,996,762 got the nod), followed by the Governorate of North Al Batinah (29 applications worth OMR3,209,869) and the Governorate of South Al Batinah (19 applications worth OMR1,667,800).
