First Edition of "Rencontres du financement" Event: A Platform for SMEs to Explore Financing Mechanisms

The first edition of the "Rencontres du financement" event, organized by the Tunisian-French Chamber of Commerce (Ccitf) in collaboration with the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations (CDC), provided an opportunity for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to learn about financing mechanisms from multilateral, bilateral, and national funders.

Among these funders is the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, which offers investment, advisory, and asset management services to promote private sector development in less developed countries.

Sarah Morsi, IFC's representative in Tunisia and Libya, presented the eligibility criteria for project investments during the event:

• Be located in a developing country that is a member of the IFC
• Be technically sound
• Have good profitability prospects
• Benefit the local economy
• Be environmentally and socially responsible

Notably, in the current macroeconomic context, the IFC is focusing on exporters to mitigate the risks associated with currency fluctuations, as explained by Morsi.

Among the challenges faced in Tunisia, Morsi highlighted the large financing requests that sometimes exceed the institution's intervention capacity. She also mentioned the presence of groups composed of diverse, unstructured companies, making credit analysis more complex.

"Our role is not to compete with Tunisian commercial banks. We are capable of convincing our committees to intervene only when we can offer added value. This can be translated into specialized advisory and support services or our ability to work on structuring that commercial banks are not capable of offering," said the IFC representative.