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First Arab Microfinance Investment Symposium in Dubai
The Arab world is beginning to embrace microfinance - a $300 billion global industry that achieves average annual growth rates of 40 per cent and investment returns of 25 per cent.
- Staff Report
- Published: 23:20 November 7, 2008
Dubai: The Arab world is beginning to embrace microfinance - a $300 billion global industry that achieves average annual growth rates of 40 per cent and investment returns of 25 per cent.
Grameen-Jameel - new microfinance entity born out of an alliance between the Bangladesh-based Grameen Foundation and Saudi Arabia's Bab Rizq Jameel Limited, a subsidiary of Abdul Latif Jameel Group - has facilitated local currency financing of $44 million backed by $20 million in guarantees to its partners.
Grameen-Jameel has reached more than 200,000 new microfinance clients through its partners in Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia.
It is co-hosting the region's first Arab Microfinance Investment Symposium on the November 30 in Dubai with Geneva-based microfinance investment manager BlueOrchard.
Scheduled to take place at the Emirates Towers Hotel, the Symposium will bring together investors and microfinance institutions (MFIs) from the region for the first time ever, hence demonstrating the growing importance of microfinance in the Arab World and its emergence as an attractive asset class.
Heather Henyon, General Manager, Grameen-Jameel, said "Microfinance is known to be countercyclical to the macroeconomic environment. As governments across the Arab region begin to create microfinance-friendly regulatory environments, the window for investment is opening."
Keynote speakers include Fadi Ghandour, Founder and CEO of Aramex and Chairman of one of the leading MFIs in Jordan, National Microfinance Bank; Fadi Abdul Latif Jameel, Board Director of Grameen-Jameel; Jack Lowe, President of BlueOrchard Finance Inc.; Prashant Thakkar, Microfinance Business Head of Standard Chartered Bank; Royston Braganza, CEO of Grameen Capital India; and Deepak Khanna, Senior Programme Manager of International Finance Corporation.
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