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In the year when Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) faced tough challenges due to COVID-19 outbreak, the small and medium firms got timely support from the QDB. Whether it was regarding financial services, consultancy or guidance, QDB registered impressive growth in all segments of its services during 2020.
The direct lending from QDB grew to QR7.31bn last year, registering a growth of 9 percent from 2019, said the bank on its social media account, highlighting its achievement in 2020. The bank had granted direct loans of about QR6.7bn during 2019. The state-owned development organisation is the main entity responsible for supporting and promoting local SMEs to establish a vibrant private sector in the country.
There was a growth of 34 percent in number of beneficiaries from QDB’s advisory (consultation) service as 474 entities benefitted from such services in 2020 compared to 354 in 2019.
QDB, apart from providing local as well as global market access and financial support services, it also offers a lot of other benefits such as incubation facilities, consultancy, market intelligence, training and skill development programmes, meetings, seminars, workshops and exhibitions. During 2020, the number of incubated companies reached 320, registering around 25 percent compared to 2019.
Small- and medium-sized enterprises make up a large share of Qatari enterprises and are a key pillar of the State’s ambitions to diversify the economy. In light of the National Development Strategy (NDS) for Qatar (2018-2022), the SME sector represents a target area for future development.
QDB conducts broad variety of initiatives and programs to support SMEs in Qatar. Some of them are initiated QDB, while some are conducted by supporting agencies and some by other key players.
In Qatar, for a company to be considered an SME, the number of employees must not exceed 250 and the annual turnover should not be more than QR100m. A company is considered ‘Micro’ if its employees do not exceed 10 and its annual turnover does not exceed QR1m. Enterprises that are classified as ‘Small’ if it employs between 11 and 50 people and generate between QR1m and QR20m of annual turnover. To be classified as a Medium-sized company, the total number of employees must be between 51 and 250 and the annual turnover must be between QR20m and QR100m.
