130 new projects by the Economic and Social Fund for Development during the third quarter of 2013

The Economic and Social Fund for Development issued a bulleting yesterday indicating that the number of projects funded during the third quarter of 2013 has reached new 130 projects and that these projects received a total of 3.2 billion Lebanese Pounds through the ESFD "Creating Job Opportunities" component, thus helping to create 135 new job opportunities.
With the additional new projects, the total number of small and medium enterprises funded by the ESFD since its inception in 2003 reached 7579 by September 2013 with a total lending of 118 billion Lebanese Pounds and a total of 5174 jobs created.
To be noted that the ESFD was created within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and through a financing agreement signed in October 2000 by the Lebanese government represented by the Council for Development and Reconstruction.  The main aim of the ESFD is to help combat poverty and mitigate its impact on vulnerable communities through its two components, namely "creation of job opportunities" and "local development".
Source: Al-Diyar 22 October 2013