The Euro-Mediterranean Guarantee Network – EMGN website has been officially launched. EMGN seeks to alleviate the region’s structural constraints for MSMEs to access to finance by gathering guarantee schemes active in the countries of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership around eight closely related objectives:
- BRIDGE the knowledge gap as regards MSMEs access to finance in the region.
- INCREASE COOPERATION between EU, the Northern and Southern Mediterranean institutions active in the development of MSMEs and their access to finance, thorough i.e. the recently established European External Investment Plan.
- EXPAND guarantee schemes in the Mediterranean Partner Countries and the advancement of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in the area of credit guarantees.
- SUPPORT the development of Southern Mediterranean guarantee schemes product range and particularly in the MSME segment.
- PROVIDE evidence on the impact of credit guarantees and on the feasibility for the implementation of other guarantee instruments such as counter guarantees funds and equity guarantees.
- ENHANCE the operating environment of Northern and Southern Mediterranean guarantee schemes.
- DISSEMINATE knowledge on guarantee schemes via appropriated supports.
- INTENSIFY cooperation between the credit guarantee schemes beyond the Euro-Mediterranean region.
Among the members of the network are:
- Caisse Centrale de Garantie des Crédits d’Investissement – Algeria
- Credit Guarantee Corporation – Egypt
- Jordan Loan Guarantee Corporation – Jordan
- Kafalat SAL – Lebanon
- Caisse Centrale de Garantie, CCG – Morocco
- Euro-Palestinian Credit Guarantee Fund – Palestine
- Société Tunisienne de Garantie – Tunisia
EMGN is promoted by the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association – EMEA, the European Institute of the Mediterranean -IEMed, and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit – GIZ. The network relaunched its activities on 16 September 2019 at the workshop hosted at the Union for the Mediterranean in Barcelona (https://www.euromed-economists.org/emea-co-organizes-workshop-on-credit-guarantee-schemes-in-the-euro-mediterranean-region/) and on 16-17 December in Cairo at a conference hosted by the Egyptian Credit Guarantee Corporation (https://www.euromed-economists.org/emea-re-launches-the-euro-mediterranean-guarantee-network-emea/).
EMGN was conceived in 2012 following several meetings during 2011-2015 at the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean in Barcelona (Spain), under the coordination of Professor Rym Ayadi, EMEA President, the CGSs representatives from the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Palestine), the European Guarantee Association (AECM) and UfM officials.
EMGN responds to the recommendations endorsed by EU and Southern Mediterranean high-level stakeholders from banks, private equity and venture capital firms, stock exchanges, and MSME support agencies during the CEPS-IEMed working group on the future of MSMEs financing. The latter were endorsed during the 2011 Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Industry, held in Malta, as well as the 2014 UfM Ministerial Conference on industrial cooperation, held in Brussels.
In addition, EMGN is at the junction of other initiatives such as EU’s newly created External Investment Plan (EIP) that was adopted in September 2017 to help boost investment in partners’ countries in Africa and the European Neighbourhood. It aims to contribute to the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDG) while tackling some of the root causes of migration, as well as mobilize and leverage sustainable public and private investments to improve economic and social development with a particular focus on decent job creation.
For more information please visit https://emgn.eu/
