On March 1, 2016, Advans Cote d’Ivoire held the second edition of its SMEs meeting, at its office in Abidjan. The theme of the meeting was “Financing Small and Medium Enterprises: Advans’ SME offer, more than an option, a solution”.

At the meeting were present entrepreneurs, SME-supporting institutions, and Ministry for National Entrepreneurship, SMEs promotion and Handicraft; more than 200 participants overall.

Grégoire Danel-Fédou, Advans CI’s Director General, revealed during the event that his institution planned to disburse, this year, more than FCFA51 billion of which FCFA16.5 billion to go to SMEs (5 employees and above). In 2015, the microfinance institution disbursed FCFA11 billion for SMEs.

Minister Anzoumana Moutayé congratulated Advans CI for all its achievements. The firm has since March 2012, when it was launched, invested about FCFA 63 billion in 13,000 entrepreneurs.

Participants left the meeting satisfied as they were able to express all their concerns and reassured that the various actors present would work to overcome existing challenges.

Let us recall that Advans commitment falls in line with the plan of Ministry for National Entrepreneurship, SMEs promotion and Handicraft to create 120,000 enterprises by 2020 under the Phoenix scheme that aims to establish a favorable environment for SMEs’ development.