40 young entrepreneurs who started from scratch are now millionaires
The Kingdom's efforts to encourage small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has become a success story for 40 young Bahraini entrepreneurs who started from scratch and now are millionaires, a senior official at UNIDO said yesterday.
Dr. Hashim Hussein, head of UNIDO ITPO Bahrain, told Bahrain Tribune that the Bahrain Arab Model has emerged as one of the best business models in the region.
Dr. Hashim said under this programme, the BDB had already extended over BD 100 million and there would be no shortage of funding due to a successful financing cycle.
Bahrain's Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) model for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has yielded record economic benefits for local entrepreneurs who started at ground-level and got technical assistance from the UNIDO and financial support from Bahrain Development Bank (BDB).
"Projects conceived, developed and implemented by a group of experts from UINDO, BDB and the Arab Regional Centre for Entrepreneurship and Investment Training (ARCEIT), 40 already crossed the million-dollar mark in terms of turnover and their business, making Bahrain one of the most successful countries to develop the SME model in the world.
"The Kingdom has excelled in establishing the best model for SMEs with a success rate rising to 70 per cent out-of-the-wall and 60 in incubators per cent compared with the UN organisation's 25 per cent worldwide.
"This is yet another bench mark in success rate as in a country like US this rate is much lower than Bahrain scored on this front. We are working hard to make it a further success," he said.
Once the unemployed young Bahrainis and now the millionaire business owners, he said, it was the culmination of projects initiated by the UN organisation and the bank to develop the Kingdom's Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP), or what is called the blueprint for SMEs under the direction of the top leadership to establish Bahrain as the hub for such enterprises in the region.
He said that the success of the young entrepreneurs was also a success for the Kingdom, and such endeavours would help to establish Bahrain as the industrial investment hub.
He lauded efforts of the Unido team, assuring them all possible support in future so that the expertise can bring prosperity to young talented Bahrainis.
He also highlighted the importance of the incubator projects, saying that the successful model of young entrepreneurs would help to change the mindset, bringing more talented people under the umbrella of Bahrain's entrepreneurship development and enterprise-creation programme.
By Mahmood Rafique
© Bahrain Tribune 2007
