Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are key to job creation both in Bahrain and across the region, said a senior official of Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance (BIBF) at a seminar held in Manama.

It was organised by the Mena Centre for Investment and BIBF who are collaborating to host a series of events to tackle this issue.

'SMEs have long been the drivers of job creation across the Western world and if we are to create the necessary jobs in this region then that is where we will have to look for growth,' said Anuradha Shaw, a senior lecturer at BIBF.

'We need government policy and private industry as well as funding organisations to help stimulate the development and growth of small businesses,' she noted.

The seminar looked at how SMEs have emerged as a powerful engine of growth in both developing and developed economies by offering sources of employment, being seedbeds of innovation and promoting regional dispersal of skilled people, resources and other factors of production.

The seminar probed numerous obstacles to SME growth and their under-representation in government priorities, policy inconsistencies, infrastructure deficiencies and lack of interest from financial intermediaries because of skewed risk perception.

The event was opened by Mena Centre for Investment vice-chair Dr Abdulla Al Sadeq and BIBF deputy director Hussain Ismail.-TradeArabia News Service