Côte d'Ivoire: Proparco confirms its support for SMEs by deploying a new financial tool.

SGCI is SG’s main subsidiary in Sub-Saharan Africa and is a key player in international trade finance in Côte d’Ivoire. In line with SG Group’s strong ambitions and the Grow with Africa strategy, SGCI’s activity in the SME segment is experiencing rapid growth. SGCI is also the main partner of ARIZ in all AFD Group’s geographical areas of operation. 

This project involves a portfolio guarantee on short-term trade finance operations to cover the default risk of SME clients. It is a pilot project that meets a growing demand from banks in the area. This program will complement our range of SME financing by now adding solutions to it that meet their needs during their operating cycle. 

In terms of expected impacts, this guarantee provided by Proparco will: 

• Maintain or create jobs for over 1,500 employees over the next 5 years, including some 900 for women.
• Support 14,500 indirect jobs related to the 50 clients that will be able to benefit from Proparco’s guarantee for their imported inputs. 
• Develop growth in activity and the instruments made available to Ivorian SMEs by SGCI, as the guarantee allocated to the institution could cover over fifty SMEs over a 3-year period. 
• Also have effects on the private sector by training the employees of SGCI, which earmarks an average of 2% of its payroll for training activities, i.e. some 600 executives and 800 non-executives trained by 2024.