Morocco’s Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) has released Thursday 27 a report recommending the launch of a program to support 30,000 Small and Medium-size Enterprises (SMEs) over a 5-year period.

The Economic, Social and Environmental Council in Morocco released a new report that highlights the need for an immense program to provide business support to SME throughout Morocco.

The report states that this should focus on both supporting existing very small businesses (VSEs) with immense growth prospects, as well as helping entrepreneurs start new businesses.

The report, entitled The new development model of Morocco: CESE Contribution, suggest the creation of a fund to support the equity capital of entrepreneurs, and establish public guarantees for bank loans.

It also advocates the establishment of a venture capital public-private fund to help start-ups in the first phases of their business life cycle, in addition to the creation of business ecosystem to help incubators and accelerators provide business support to entrepreneurs.

Another recommendation in CESE’s report is to implement a program to create 10,000 companies per year. This massive program consists of providing direct support to project initiators by giving them access to “state-guaranteed bank loans and business support through the associative fabric.” CESE specifies that in this context, priority should be given to financing and empowering social and solidarity businesses.

As far as the existing Small and Medium-size Enterprises are concerned, the report recommends different forms of support such as facilitating the procedures and providing resources for upgrade, growth, export development and public-private partnerships.

For this matter, it notes that programs should be established at the regional level in order to support 10,000 businesses nation-wide. These, it continues, relies on expanding the range of Central Guarantee Fund’s action.

CESE’s report says that two key reforms must be implemented, “recasting laws and regulations relating to business support to prioritize efficiency over control and make deadlines more compatible with the pace of investment” and “upgrade the legal framework and regulation concerning companies in difficulty.