The Director of the Women's Section of the Social Development Bank in the Eastern Province, Fawzia Al-Qahtani, stressed that the resettlement program (Hal) that was implemented by the Social Welfare Fund, which runs by the Bank, is starting from the current year and has allocated more than 24 million riyals to finance 129 loans to finance small and micro projects.
Al-Qahtani presented a lecture that was held in Asharqia Chamber on Tuesday 12 February 2019 about the Social Development Bank, which was established in 1391.
The Social Development Bank started with a capital of SR 5 million and has increased at intervals until now reached 46 billion riyals.
It has 27 branches throughout the Kingdom, including 7 women's branches.
All of which provide financial and non-financial services, including interest-free loans for small and medium projects as well as micro projects involving charities and productive families, etc.
The bank also provides social loans for home renovation, encouraging young people to get married, as well as non-financial services by promoting savings, capacity-building and others.
Regarding the Saudization program (Hal), the lecturer said that the program coincided with the decisions of the Ministry of Labor and Social Development that is in line with developments in the labor market, as it is very compatible with the resettlement projects adopted by the Kingdom, represented by the Ministry of Labor.
The project was implemented starting this year 1440, where the financing ceiling starts from SR 50,000 to SR 1 million.
Al-Qahtani reviewed a number of trade and service activities targeted at the program as the most prominent activities are: (cars and motorcycles, garments, household & Office Furniture, household Utensils, Auto Parts, household appliances, carpets of all kinds, building materials and construction, clocks).
Regarding the role of the Bank in the decision to settle the 12 economic activities announced by the Council of Ministers, the Bank contributes through funding to support and establish new projects through providing services "training, consulting, guidance, follow-up and evaluation," as well as contributing to business development through "developing innovative business models and developing value chains for activities."
In this regard, Al-Qahtani stressed that the benefits of the Saudization program (Hal) is that it is interest-free financing for a grace period of up to 18 months with easy installments and repayment period of up to 96 months.
It is providing non-financial services such as rehabilitation and sponsorship of projects with a training program, specialized training courses, technical workshops, and financial and marketing advice, all of which are free of charge.
In order to obtain these services, the lecture identified a number of requirements for those wishing to do so, which is: "The applicant must be Saudi, full-time for his/her project, should be between 20 and 65 years, and not be the owner of any facility other than required for financing, do not exceed the financial difficulties if there are limits of 30 thousand riyals, that the arrears have been paid in the social loan, if any, pass the personal interview and training course, and not to exceed the amount of funding around one million Saudi riyals."
In this regard, she said that the number of loans accepted so far were 129 loans worth more than 24 million riyals (24,296,000 riyals).
In conclusion, Fawzia Al Qahtani was honored by the Director of the Center for Business Women in charge of Hanan Al-Wabel.
Also, the partners of the Saudization Program, the Director of the Women Section in the Eastern Province Labor Office, Eman Al Zahrani, and the director of the Women's Section of the Institute of National Entrepreneurship in the Eastern Province, Noura Al-Mulhim, were honored for their participatation in the lecture.
