In a meeting organized by the Asharqia Chamber
Al-Majil: 17 billion riyals industrial loans during the year 2020
The Chief Executive of the Industrial Development Fund, Dr. Ibrahim bin Saad Al-Majil, said that the fund is currently in a new phase, with new services, and it always seeks to support the major goals of the Kingdom such as “competitiveness, nationalization, and support for small and medium enterprises.” The fund has integration with large companies and the Development Fund. Social, and fully prepared for integration and coordination with the Saudi Chambers.
Al-Majil explained during a remote meeting organized on Monday, March 29, 2021, the Asharqia Chamber represented by the Foreign Investment Committee and managed by a member of the board of directors and head of the committee, Saadoun bin Khaled Al-Ateesh Al-Khalidi, that there are many developments that the fund has witnessed to develop its services. Formulating and shortening it, as well as looking for customer satisfaction and listening to their evaluation of the fund’s performance.
He added that last year, as the Corona pandemic, the Fund launched several initiatives centered on restructuring all loans to small and medium enterprises, and communication with large companies was also made, and we opened a line of credit for the second amount, and this line did not exist before, as the defenses were structured, and we contacted Companies to support the need for rapid expansion of some products (such as the production of masks, whose production capacity has been raised to 10 million masks). Some companies have also been funded to purchase some raw materials.
In this regard, Al-Majil stated that the fund, since 2019, has launched new procedures that resulted in changing the electronic system and the organizational structure of the fund, and the change was comprehensive, and it was supported and interacted by the beneficiary clients.
Based on all this, the volume of lending increased last year to 17 billion riyals, compared to 12.5 billion riyals in the year 2019, due to the keenness of investors to work and then the remarkable increase in lending and facilities provided by the fund, as 86% of clients are from small enterprises and 14 % Of large establishments.
He continued, saying that the average lending time was within 11 months, it decreased to 5 months, and it will reach 4 months in the current year 2021, explaining that global development banks take 6 months to lend, and global commercial banks three months, and we hope that we will reach the level of the latter. The loan grant period is 3 months.
He mentioned that the main goal of all this is financial empowerment, which is no longer limited to new projects, but rather we have a product called "multi-purpose loan" that includes the establishment of the factory as well as its development, and we have developed another product (acquisition financing), which is dedicated to supporting integration and expansion between Industrial enterprises because we focus on the higher goals of the Kingdom, so we provide additional support and a longer period of grace for any project that leads to achieving competitiveness.
Regarding the mechanism of benefiting from the services of the fund, Al-Mojil emphasized that everything is done easily through the application (Absher), explaining that the financing requirements of the fund were developed, facilitated, and shortened as well as the rest of the procedures, by 40% of the previous, as we need to be the beneficiary Has a financial capacity that qualifies him to manage the project, and to be an owner of 25% of the capital and the fund supports it with 25% that may reach 75%. The support may increase if it is an urgent need, and we add to that by appointing for each project an employee under the name of "relationship manager" who continues the disbursement process with the client, and in the event of any problem, he can communicate with any of the officials in the fund, and in the event of stumbling we communicate with him and strive for the project to continue and continue. We have a work team whose task is to reformulate the company if it faltered permanently, so what matters to us is the success of the project, and if the client wants to increase the production capacity, we provide him with additional support and also provide consulting services, and we subject ourselves to evaluation by clients to find out their level of satisfaction.
He called on investors wishing to establish their projects to communicate with the fund before starting the establishment and purchasing equipment, as the fund provides them with advice in this regard that may reduce their expenses.
He stressed that the fund is integrated with the Social Development Fund, and any project with a cost of fewer than 5 million riyals can apply to it, and in case he wants to expand, we can finance that, and if the capital is more than that, he can go to the fund directly.
He expressed the Fund's readiness to communicate with the Saudi Chambers (including the Asharqia Chamber) and to receive letters of support from them for any industrial project, for it to finance it according to the aforementioned conditions.
