Egypt Enterprise Fund will invest $60m in smaller businesses

[DJKeefy]

Egypt Enterprise Fund will invest $60m in smaller businesses: US embassy.

Initiative unveiled by Hillary Clinton on Saturday aims to inject equity into promising new Egyptian firms which are short of financing, say officials

The US embassy has revealed more details of the Egypt Enterprise Fund, a new $60 million initiative to invest in the shares of promising small and medium-sized Egyptian firms.

The fund was announced in Cairo on Saturday by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a news conference following her meeting with Egypt's new president Mohamed Morsi.

Clinton also pledged Egypt $250 million in trade credit guarantees and the fulfilment of debt swap deals announced by President Obama in late spring 2011.

A Sunday statement from the US Embassy in Cairo said the Egyptian Enterprise Fund will be formally created "in the next month" with $60 million ready for investment by September.

Managed by a board of directors made up of Egyptians and Americans familiar with international finance and Egypt's private sector, the fund will inject equity into "promising new firms that lack financing", the embassy said.

Such financing will act as a catalyst to attract others to invest, it added.

James Harmon, current chairman of Caravel Management, an investment advisory firm in New York, was named as the fund's chairman.

"Egypt needs sustained economic growth of incomes and employment during its transition to democracy," said the embassy's statement.

"The best potential to respond to these needs quickly comes from Egypt’s small and medium sized businesses."

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/47802.aspx

[LovelyLadyLux]

Geez - will this might be a terrific gesture to Egyptian small business am kinda wondering what the explanataion will be to all those small businesses HERE in the USA who are screaming for funding will be?

[Horus]

We have the same problem here LLL, elderly people having to sell their homes to fund long term care home costs, yet our leaders give away billions in foreign aid. They say they cannot afford to fund this care, yet they can bail out rich bankers and give money to India a country with a space program for gods sake and even China gets a bung. Then they tell us that they have pledged to increase our foreign aid budget as a percentage of our GDP!!!!!!!!! why?......................... am I suppose to care for the rest of the world while my mother and others like here would have to sell their homes if the need arose and she needed to be in a care home.
I say we should not give aid to any of the following:
Any country with an arms budget.
Any country with a space program.
Any country with a despot in charge.
Any country with a nuclear program.
Any country with a % GDP higher than our own.
Then maybe when we have finished looking after our own people who have paid in all this revenue during their working lives, we can start to be more generous.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Can't say I disagree at all H. There is rampant poverty here in the USA right now. Always was but with the economic downturn it is getting real bad real fast. Many here ARE going hungry yet the USA is giving away a bizzillion every day around the world. Don't disagree that life is tough but I've often wondered 'when do I get MY turn? What will be left to look after ME when I get old?' I've paid into all the funds and systems and taxes etc all my life but it is being given away by the country leaders faster than I can make it. Problem is, on day, there is going to be absolutely nothing left to give. What happens then? And, from a lifetime of working public sector I can tell you that handing out freebies with no strings attached never really helps or improves anybody.

And I do concur that if a country has a space program, nuclear arms etc etc etc "WHY" is anybody giving them aid?