Jordan Times
Thursday, March 18, 2004
Advantages of microenterprise
highlighted at seminar on
'Microfinance: A tool for Economic Growth in Jordan'
By Ruba Saqr
AMMAN — Young university students and older men giggled when Um Mohammad, peering at them from the big screen, advised "those unemployed men" to make do with being idle and start up their own micro-business just like she did.Mona Hamdan, best known as Um Mohammad, is a pickle maker who shared her success story with microcredit through a televised short film, during a US embassy seminar on Wednesday, dubbed "Microfinance: A tool for Economic Growth in Jordan."
Resident of eastern Amman's Marka neighbourhood, Hamdan says: "I am now a self-reliant businesswoman who can support her family without having to worry about the future."
She got her microfinance loan from the Jordan Micro Credit Company (JMCC), one of several microcredit companies partnering with the US-funded Achievement of Market-Friendly Initiative and Results Programme (AMIR). Other companies are the Ahli Microfinancing Company, the Microfund for Women, and the Middle East Micro Credit Company.
Organised by AMIR and the American embassy, Wednesday's event brought together around 200 college students, mainly majoring in business and administration, and NGO representatives. They were briefed by AMIR's Suhair Khatib on the advantages of micro-enterprise.
According to Khatib, 260,000 enterprises in Jordan are classified under "small enterprise." AMIR figures also show up to 134,000 loans have been given to 55,000 self-employment projects, household businesses, micro and small enterprises.
According to Khaled Ghazawi, JMCC's general manager, 80 per cent of the creditors are women, while 70 per cent of the projects are commercial ones; 17 per cent belonging to the industrial sector, with the rest (13 per cent) pertaining to projects in services.
The value of JMCC's next portfolio stands at 1,848,655, while the number of their expected future clients is 2,757. Their risk portfolio accounts for 0.98 per cent, and the total number of disbursed loans since the company's inception stand at 8,993 with a total value of JD7.86 million.
Funded by USAID, JMCC officers travel door-to-door to meet their clients and help them with their paperwork to start a business.
"The good reputation of our clients is what matters to us since we do not require traditional collateral for our loans... unlike banks," Ghazawi indicated.
"However, in some cases the interest on our loans can be higher than the bank's interest," Ghazawi told The Jordan Times.
With that being the case, he asserted that 99.37 per cent of his company's clients return their loans.
"Unlike the stereotype, poor people are more committed than others when it comes to the projects they depend on for their survival," he stressed.