Bahrain to Extend Quota to 10% of All Public Contracts to SMEs

The government of Bahrain has been making constant efforts to boost the country’s SME sector by introducing a new quota on all public tenders. Currently, the 10% quota for SMEs exists only on auctions for service facilities at government entreprises, but this new mandate will make it easier for SMEs to get more government deals.

This isn’t the first occurrence of such regulation changes to support SMEs in the region, with Expo 2020 Dubai had taken place in March further allowing half of the contracts related to the event to be given to SMEs. Additionally, in January 2016, the Central Bank of Egypt announced that all the banks in the country are bound to lend at least 20% of all their loans to SMEs by the end of 2020.

“So far, we have over 26,000 registered suppliers from 150 countries wanting to do business with Expo. 75% of those companies are SMEs,” said Tina Ghanem, Director of Expo 2020’s Online Marketplace (OMP), in a presentation at the Arabian Business Startup Academy in Dubai.