The operation of the mechanism of guaranteeing credit to small and medium-sized enterprises “Dhamen Express” of the Tunisian Guarantee Company (SOTUGAR), has been the subject of agreements signed between the company and local banks.
Endowed with resources that will allow the guarantee of financing SMEs up to 250 million dinars by 2023, “Dhamen Express” and the digital solution of its deployment, were presented on March 16, 2022, to partner banks.
These resources are more than double the current performance of the guarantee fund SME, President and CEO of SOTUGAR, Tahar Ben Hatira was quoted as saying by a statement from the company published Thursday.
The operationalization of the mechanism is made possible by the technical support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for the digitization of the guarantee mechanism, said Ben Hatira.
USAID’s technical assistance comes at this critical stage of digitization of the first part of the process after the initial support of the World Bank, he added.
He said that the next few weeks will be devoted to the popularization and handling of the platform by the services of partner banks, in charge of credit operations to SMEs through the organization of 8 days of training by the Tunisian Professional Association of Banks and Financial Institutions (APTBEF).
For his part, the Vice President of APTBEF and General Manager of BH Bank, Hichem Rebai stressed that the establishment of this mechanism will revive the activity of financing support to businesses and professionals after the episode COVID.
Through this new offer, SOTUGAR, a privileged partner of banks and financial institutions, reaches a new level after 20 years of activity compared to the traditional offer, he added.
The mechanism “Dhamen Express” comes to relay the mechanisms “Support to the Resilience of Enterprises” (SARE) given the expected impact and the effectiveness and simplicity that it presents, he said. Indeed, “Dhamen Express” offers a wider range of eligible activities, a support for export credits in an unlimited manner and those covering the needs of working capital of companies, for a longer period, he pointed out.
