Qatar

Qatar Development Bank (QDB) has launched an integrated consultancy programme ‘Isteshara’ to provide different types of advisory services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The subsidised professional consultancy services are available to all Qatari entrepreneurs and SMEs. QDB has announced that it will bear 70 percent of the consultancy service cost, while the entrepreneur, or SME, will pay the remaining 30 percent.

A year after launching its “Aamaly Programme,” QIB has again been named “Best Islamic Bank in Qatar” and “Best SME Islamic Finance Provider” by World Finance Magazine.

“The growth in SME financing was the result of QIB’s successful ‘Aamaly’ programme, launched at the beginning of the year,” Gamal said.

Local banks have scaled up their assistance to small and medium enterprises in a big way as the country looks to engage SMEs actively in nation-building and enhance private sector involvement in the economy.
The state-owned Qatar Development Bank (QDB) is the catalyst to SME development by designing a programme - Al Dhameen, which encourages banks to extend financial assistance to promising SMEs, which otherwise would have gone largely non-funded due to limited credit history, or insufficient collateral.