The role of business incubators represented by the banking system in financing small and medium enterprises in Iraq for the period 2000-2010

Abstract

The process of transformation from the central economy to a free economy requires restructuring the economy according to a new economic philosophy that relies on activating the role of private economic activity in which private and medium-sized institutions occupy an essential axis for their active role in the economies of all countries, especially those countries that have directed towards the market mechanism and sector leadership. The special process of economic development and the role that commercial banks can play in advancing the financing of these projects by establishing specialized business incubators for financing.

What encouraged countries to pay attention to these institutions is the ease of their establishment and the low capital used in them and their ability to create increased job opportunities, their ability to enter in the tracks of industries that refrain from entering large institutions, as well as having sufficient flexibility to enable them to spread in the various small and rural cities in its higher innovation potential.

 In spite of its enjoyment of these advantages and characteristics, it encounters many obstacles, foremost of which are financial constraints, which necessarily necessitates studying the potential financing outlets for small and medium enterprises, including specialized financing institutions. It was found after the study that the financing of these specialized institutions does not fit with the need and nature of the institutions for small and medium-sized companies, despite the fact that the establishment of specialized lending institutions was mainly in order to correct imbalances in the credit market and compensate for the financing gap, the practical reality is that there are a number of obstacles that hinder the ability of these institutions. It specializes in providing the appropriate alternative to financing because it is unable to avoid the risk of risk in providing loans due to the lack of objective studies of the economic feasibility of projects established by small and medium enterprises and the weak guarantees that they possess that can be provided to the lenders to obtain the necessary financing, in addition to the fact that the loans provided are often in line with large project loans and inconsistent with the character and needs of small and medium enterprises.

Therefore, specialized banks, such as industrial, agricultural, real estate industrial, and real estate banks, can also contribute to providing financial liquidity to this incubator as a long-term investment, provided that small and medium-sized enterprises are funded according to the nature of the production or service project, which is the industrial, agricultural, and real estate banks with the necessary funds.