▸ Bahrain cabinet has extended the rule, giving more business to small companies.
▸ Currently, a 10 percent quota exists on auctions for service facilities at government enterprises.
Last week, Bahrain’s cabinet has introduced a new quota on all public tenders, stipulating that 10 percent of all contracts awarded should go to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
According to the Gulf Daily News report, currently, a 10 percent quota exists on auctions for service facilities at government enterprises, but this new mandate expands the quota to all public tenders and will help ensure that SMEs get more access to government deals.
Quotas to support SMEs are nothing new in the region. In the United Arab Emirates, Expo 2020 Dubai said in March it has awarded over half of all contracted related to the event to SMEs and is on target to meet its goal of awarded a fifth of its budget to the sector.
“So far we have over 26,000 registered suppliers from one hundred and fifty countries wanting to do business with Expo. 75 percent of those companies are actual SMEs”.
Tina Ghanem – Director, Expo 2020’s Online Marketplace (OMP)
The Central Bank of Egypt in January 2016 announced a new rule that all banks in the country must lend at least 20 percent of loans to SMEs by the end of 2020.
Source: Arabian Business
