KHALED AL KHAWALDEH (ABU DHABI)
The National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah (RAKBANK) launched a brand-new nation-wide index that records the perceptions and projections of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) around the country.
The index, which is made up of data based on the survey of close to 1000 SMEs from across all seven emirates is intended to provide a comprehensive insight into the sentiments and struggles of companies.
At an event held in Dubai International Financial City on Thursday, a group of executives from the bank discussed the details of the report to an audience that included members of the press and His Excellency Abdulaziz Alnuaimi, Assistant Undersecretary for Economic Affairs and Entrepreneurship at the UAE Ministry of Economy.
"The SME community is the backbone of the UAE economy, which is why we decided to focus on this sector for the purposes of the index," the Managing Director of RAKBANK Business Banking group, Dhiraj Kunwar told reporters.
"The good news is that we have a broad-based bullish sentiment from SMEs in the country.”
With over 80,000 small- to medium-sized clients, RAKBANK considers itself an SME bank according to CEO, Raheel Ahmed. He believed that it was incumbent on the bank to utilise its position to be able to provide investors and broader stakeholders with insights into the thoughts of people from the smaller end of town. Ahmed said the report’s findings painted an optimistic picture of the economic outlook for SMEs.
“We pride ourselves on being an SME bank so we thought it would be appropriate to launch an SME index,” he said.
“A huge positive here in the UAE is that if you think about the COVID pandemic, that was an era of resilience, and now post-COVID is an era of prosperity for SMEs.”
The full report will be available next week and will begin a year-on-year index that will plan to showcase the changing sentiments of SMEs over the coming years.