| Having trouble viewing this email? View it as a Web page. You are subscribed to Blog - "Treasury Notes" for U.S. Department of the Treasury. This information has recently been updated, and is now available. As people around the country participate in National Small Business Week, the Treasury Department recognizes that support for small businesses also goes beyond our borders. One cost-effective way that the Treasury Department works to boost economic growth globally is our investments in the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). The World Bank and other regional MDBs are critical to Treasury's work to unlock new export markets for American goods and services. An important piece of this equation is the MDB's work to strengthen business environments in developing countries so that small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can grow and thrive. Promoting SMEs abroad creates jobs and is the foundation for lifting millions of people out of extreme poverty and into the middle class – ultimately increasing global demand and creating new opportunities for American businesses. SMEs in developing and emerging economies account for over 80 percent of employment opportunities and are crucial for growth, but these small businesses often lack access to the capital they need to operate and expand. Treasury promotes efforts at the MDBs to address the systemic financial constraints on these small yet important engines of growth, addressing issues like insufficient track records of creditworthiness, absence of credit information, lack of traditional collateral, and high transaction costs. Below are just a few examples highlighting the work of the MDBs to promote small businesses around the world: - The World Bank's International Finance Corporation's (IFC's) Small and Medium Enterprise Department provides investment and advisory services to SMEs in more than 70 countries. In addition, the World Bank's Doing Business Report: "Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises" helps identify important bottlenecks to starting up new SMEs. The Report ranks countries across the world according to measures of ease of doing business, such as starting a business, enforcing contracts, trading across borders, and accessing credit. These indicators not only help track the challenges facing local businesses, they also help foreign investors, including U.S. investors, assess market opportunities for their own investments.
- The U.S. has directly supported the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's work in SMEs through the establishment of the SME Trust Fund, which supports local bank lending to SMEs. The SME Trust Fund has also financed business advisory services that help small businesses boost their export competitiveness.
- The Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC) is the only multilateral private sector financing institution in Latin America and the Caribbean that focuses specifically on SMEs. The IIC has approved nearly 800 direct loans to SMEs and financial intermediaries, totaling more than $4.8 billion, over its 30 year history. This includes a growing local-currency lending program that allows the IIC to make individual loans directly to small businesses. In addition, the IIC offers value-added services and other technical assistance specifically tailored for SME needs, and helps small businesses to reduce their energy costs through innovative technological support and financing.
- The IDB's Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) places special emphasis on identifying, developing, and promoting innovative SME business models and creative market-based solutions to development challenges—with cutting-edge projects in areas such as microfinance, mobile banking, microinsurance, and women's empowerment through business, and youth training. With programming focused on low-income populations, the MIF has approved over 1,600 projects totaling more than $1.9 billion since 1993. The MIF also supports SMEs through venture capital and business incubators, as well as by helping banks and other financial institutions increase their lending to SMEs. The African Development Bank (AfDB) supports a wide variety of micro-small-, and medium-sized enterprises through lines of credit and guarantee facilities for local banks. The AfDB also provides policy advice and resources for technical assistance and capacity building. From 2008 to 2012, 34 percent of the AfDB's private sector operations targeted microenterprises and SMEs, and the AfDB has set a goal of scaling up its financing. The AfDB recently launched a $125 million SME program to support local financial institutions (including banks, microfinance institutions, and leasing companies) through letters of credit for on-lending to SMEs. Finally, AfDB programs like the Skills, Employability, and Entrepreneurship Program in Rwanda are helping to develop local businesses and expand financial access for female entrepreneurs.
Holly Shulman is the Spokesperson for International Affairs at the United States Department of the Treasury. 
| This email was sent to iammejtm@gmail.com using GovDelivery, on behalf of: U.S. Department of the Treasury · 1500 Pennsylvania Ave NW · Washington, DC 20220 · 202-622-2000 |  | |
No comments:
Post a Comment