Micro-finance institutions eye treble recipients

Micro-finance institutions, which have extended some 1.5 million loans worth 3.4 billion DH (around US$ 377 million) by end of last December, want to treble the number of recipients to reach 1 million persons and increase by eight folds their loans to 4.5 billion DH (US$ 500 million).

Chairman of the federation of micro-finance institutions, Rida Lamrini, said a total of 537 million DH were earmarked in micro-loans that went to 307,532 persons, including 75% of women.

Micro-finance has created 1,057 direct permanent jobs and thousands of indirect jobs, said the chairman of the federation which musters 12 institutions.

He stressed that "the Moroccan experience is poised to become a reference in the Mediterranean, as half of all the region's recipients are Moroccans and Morocco is one of the few countries that adopted a law that regulates and supervises this activity." He called for access to subsidies and to bank loans in order to finance micro-finance social activities, in addition to mobilizing the savings of micro-entrepreneurs and resorting to the stock market to finance debts.