AMMAN (Petra) -- Experts from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe are participating at two-day conference that opened here Wednesday on the microfinance industry.
Omar Rafiee, director of the Socio-Economic Productivity Unit at the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, inaugurated the conference by highlighting the significance of microfinance projects to improve the living standards of low-income citizens.
"The government has launched a strategy to regulate this sector as a tool to combat poverty," he said noting that the private sector was encouraged to join as a major partner through providing necessary funds.
Rafiee, deputising for Planning Minister Suhair Al-Ali, outlined the challenges facing the sector especially the lack of statistics on poverty and unemployment and their geographic distribution besides the high administrative costs for lending and the numerous number of institutions engaged in the same activities.
He also mentioned the lack of regular financial resources as well as the lack of awareness.
Organised by the Jordan MicroCredit Company (Tamweelcom) in cooperation with Sifra Microfinance Networking Facilitators, participants are looking into the possibility of attracting funds to help finance microprojects in the Kingdom.
During Wednesday's sessions, the participants examined Sifra's two-year plan to attract funds from European Union (EU) countries to help support microprojects launched in the country.
They also examined several work papers on means of attracting funds, and listened to some success stories achieved in this field.
Representatives from Tunisia, Palestine, Morocco, Lebanon, Algeria, Belgium, France and Italy spoke about the experiences of their countries in the area of microfinance.
Hana' Shaheen, a board member of Tamweelcom's underlined the importance of small and medium-size projects in providing work opportunities for the underprivileged.
Tamweelcom Chief Executive Officer Zeid Rifai mentioned challenges facing workers in this field and underlined the importance of the private sector's contribution to small and medium-size projects.
"Sifra Microfinance Networking Facilitators has created a base for dialogue to facilitate the benefitting process and aspires for the support from the European Investment Bank to improve its services that relates to the social dimension of targetted groups," he said.
During last year, Tamweelcom extended 10362 loans, totalling over JD5 million to help set up small and medium-size projects in the Kingdom.
Since its inception in 1999, Jordan Micro Credit Company has received several grants and loans to support its mission.
© Jordan Times 2006
