Twelve Al Salam Group employees have completed a special training course offered by Tamkeen to the staff of its partner financial institutions in the enterprise finance scheme.

The course is part of Tamkeen’s career progression programme, which aims to enable Bahrainis to develop their skills, maximise their productivity, and increase contribution to the private sector.

It was designed as an outcome of detailed impact studies conducted by Tamkeen to assess its enterprise financing scheme.

The studies showed a need to train staff of the partner financial institutions in the scheme on how to handle SMEs applying for financial support from Tamkeen, including ways to better assess their applications and guide them throughout the process.

The programme was designed and implemented in co-operation with Dun and Bradstreet, a leading international consultant, with expertise in the areas of SME financing, programme advisory, sector studies and business evaluation, said a statement.

Prashant Kumar, senior manager at Dun & Bradstreet, said: “Based on the various programme assessment studies we have conducted for Tamkeen, this training has been specifically designed with a perspective of equipping bankers with the tools and frameworks for conducting a holistic assessment and evaluation of SME loans, in line with international best practice.”

“A key aspect of improving the impact of the financing scheme is to enhance the capacity of Tamkeen’s partner banks, with such training initiatives,” he said.

The training course helps build the competencies of employees which enhance their opportunities of promotions and improve their standard of living.

“We conduct regular research before and after we launch our programmes to assess their performance and make sure they realise their objectives," said Mohammed Bucheery, senior manager, private sector support, Tamkeen.

Tamkeen currently offers 13 finance programmes through 10 leading financial institutions in Bahrain. These include programmes to finance ICT solutions, women entrepreneurship, and micro-financing.

The budget allocated to these programmess amounts to about BD170 million ($452.1 million). – TradeArabia News Service