SCTH begins tourism funding initiative for small and medium enterprises
aTP- Arab tourism portal News – SCTH has begun recently its first steps for putting into effect the initiatives of "National Transformation Program 2020" which was approved by the Council of Ministers to achieve "Vision 2030" of the Kingdom.
Vice-President of SCTH for Investment and Tourism Development, Dr. Hamad bin Mohammad Al Semail, in this context said, that SCTH has a comprehensive plan to implement this initiative. A meeting was held in this respect with “Kafalah” program on last Tuesday 16 August in Riyadh, to fund the small and medium enterprises in order to activate and develop special tourism route, “guarantee” for funding and financing small and medium-sized enterprises in the tourism and heritage sector.
Dr. Al Semail further said, "SCTH works on preparing an integrated vision for achieving the objectives of this initiative, where the most important of these objectives is to finance tourism projects, especially in the housing sector in order to increase the supply in the sector, and thereby contributing to lowering the price of the sector, in addition to providing financial support for relevant projects such as heritage and handicrafts.
Dr. Al Semail referred to the successful and persistent longtime relationship between SCTH and "Kafalah" noting that continuing cooperation between the parties reflects the success of the partnership approach adopted by SCTH.
SCTH looks forward to develop this cooperation in accordance with the outputs of the meetings of the National Transformation Program and the special initiative of “Kafalah” and SCTH, “Guarantee” in respect of tourisms funding.
Noteworthy, SCTH had signed a memorandum of cooperation with the Saudi Industrial Development Fund on May 7, 2008, designed to provide financial support for small and medium-sized enterprises in the tourism sector in the Kingdom and to facilitate their efforts to obtain funds in coordination with the “Kafalah” and commercial banks. This was in accordance with the recommendations of the meetings that were held in the framework of the objectives and initiatives of the National Transformation Program.
Later on, an appendix to the memorandum of cooperation was signed with “Kafalah” on March 31, 2016, to put this initiative into practice where it was agreed that “Kafalah” to ensure creating a special path to guarantee financing of tourism projects before commercial banks to facilitate investment, support and motivate investors to engage in the small and medium enterprises of tourism and heritage sectors.
