MUSCAT -- The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) organised a roundtable to present report on Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) at the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry yesterday. The report is the result of a survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in August 2009. The EIU surveyed 730 senior executives from SMEs around the world about their perceptions of finance conditions.
The report suggested that access to finance among small- and medium-sized enterprises continued to grow in spite of the downturn. Despite the current gloomy environment, many SMEs continue to grow revenue -- albeit at a slower pace than in 2007 or 2008. In all, 54 per cent of executives expect revenue growth in the next two years; just 15 per cent expect a decline. Respondents in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa are most optimistic about the future.
The roundtable, which was attended by representatives from Ministry of Commerce and Industry, ACCA, banks, SMEs and media discussed the report in general and status of SMEs in Oman and ways to remove the obstacles in particular. Saif bin Ali al Rashdi, Director of Direction and Guidance at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry expressed strong commitment to support the SMEs and remove the obstacles through participation of government entities, bankers, SMEs and accounting bodies.
"We are happy with the performance of our SME division, which is only two years old. We have created an atmosphere for the SMEs and this is the time now to collect data and put things in order. In coming years we will be in a better position to comment on our achievements. Till now we have 104,000 active SMEs in the country," said Rashdi.
"I hope most of them will succeed in their endeavour and some may fail. We, however, should also keep in mind that the man who failed today may succeed tomorrow. So the things should be taken in right spirit." The representatives from the bank were unanimous in their opinion that there should be clear definition of SMEs, they should be organised and their account need to be more transparent and disciplined.
Anitha Jinjili, Deputy Head of Tijarati Banking at National Bank of Oman laid stress on better organised SME sector. She raised concern over their inability to manage their funds in the absence of internal auditing system. "It is very difficult to keep track on their fund movement and sometimes there is no clue at all to surplus fund generated during the business," she said.
Abdulnasir al Rasisi, Head of SME division of BankMuscat suggested providing audit assistance to the SMEs because services of reputed accounting bodies were very costly for them. He also suggested to have a panel of auditors with every bank to cater to the accounting needs of the SMEs. "To reduce the risk, the government can take the lead by sharing the risk of non-performing loans on 50-50 basis. The government can share 50 per cent risk and the rest 50 per cent can be shared by the banks. This will give the banks more confidence to handle with SMEs," said Abdulnasir.
Rajesh Ghosh, Segment Head-SME Banking of BankDhofar said, "We believe that the SME sector is bound to grow and we never stopped lending small and medium investors. Scrutiny and comfort level, however, have become slightly tight after the recession." Sami Omar al Hasan, Business Development Manager of GroFin Oman however, lamented the banks' dilly dallying in providing loans to SMEs and sought more co-operation from them to ensure that the SME sector grows and new entrepreneurs get better deal from them. Nasser Said al Mughaiby, Managing Partner of Abu Timan gave a presentation on the report and Mohammed Sajid Khan, Country Manager of ACCA Oman conducted the proceedings of the round table.
By Kaushalendra S Singh
© Oman Daily Observer 2009
