Social Development Bank (SDB) has underlined its commitment to enhance entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia by allocating SAR 24 billion ($6.3 billion) to finance entrepreneurs and small and emerging enterprises during the next three years.

Ibrahim Al-Rashid, CEO, Social Development Bank, said, “SDB has allocated SAR 24 billion to provide more financing support to enterprises through our products and programs. This will be crucial in providing stepping stones to more citizens for self-employment and sustainable success. SDB’s strategy is geared towards raising economic productivity. The bank has set out to achieve this by providing access to programs and products to support small and emerging enterprises, develop services, offer financing alternatives in line with targeted sectors’ needs, and encourage economic activity.”

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“SDB has an ongoing role to monitor social and economic development in the Kingdom and ensure Saudi citizens are adequately supported to succeed. Bank’s initiatives are designed to provide training and bespoke consulting and guidance programs by the Dulani Centre, in addition to Jaadah30, which provides business incubators and accelerators to empower SMEs,” he added.

In 2022, the funding provided by SDB to local small and emerging enterprises reached SAR 5 billion ($1.3 billion) and the number of entities that benefitted from financing services touched 9 thousand entities. SDB said it is committed to supporting the Kingdom’s SMEs sector by providing financing solutions to individuals and enterprises. 

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Further, the bank signed 11 agreements with multiple stakeholders, the agreements aim to develop and support SMEs as one of the most important streams of the economic and social development process. Additionally, as part of its efforts to support comprehensive development empowerment, 6 financing contracts were signed for entrepreneurs to drive economic growth.

The announcement was made on the sidelines of BIBAN 2023, a conference that brings together 120-plus empowering entities to take part and contribute to the conference, to enrich young people with creative entrepreneurial ideas. Further, the conference is in keeping with the goals of Vision 2030 and the Kingdom’s long-term objective of raising SMEs’ contribution to the nation’s GDP to 35 per cent.

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