Presentations that were given during the #Women conference in Habtoor Hotel.

1. CHALLENGES OF WOMEN IN SMES
By Randa Abousleiman
Managing Partner in
Abousleiman and Partners.

2. SUMMARY
— Women and SMEs
— Current Legal Framework of SMEs & Proposed
Amendments
― Access to Financing
― Conclusions
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3. WOMEN AND SMES
Majority of women owned businesses in Lebanon are
informal:
― Such businesses do not benefit from Social
Security
― Average income is low, which sustains poverty
― Chances of business expansion are significantly
reduced
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4. LEGAL HURDLES TO MOVE TO THE FORMAL SECTOR:
― High costs involved in establishing formal businesses
― Lack of knowledge on the legal options available
― Legal framework not adapted to cater to SMEs
• business concerns do not limit personal liability
• corporate structures available, such as SARLs and
SALs, are too cumbersome
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5. ENVISAGED SOLUTION
Improving the legal framework and reducing registration
costs to encourage women who own businesses to
formally register their businesses.
Advantages:
― Participating in economic growth
― Benefitting from Social Security coverage
― Having a legal structure that would facilitate access to
financing
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6. LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF SMES
― No official legal definition of SMEs.
― One legislative attempt: Article 2 of law n° 24 dated February 23, 1999,
defines SMEs as being enterprises employing a maximum of 40 employees.
― Since more then 80% of businesses fall within the scope of this definition, we
need a more developed legal definition of SMEs to cater to the needs of the
different categories of SMEs:
 Medium Sized Enterprises
 Small Enterprises
 Micro Enterprises
 Cumulative thresholds:
 Staff Headcount
 Annual turnover
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7. LEGAL ACTIONS TO ENCOURAGE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
FORMAL WOMEN-OWNED BUSINESSES:
― Applying tax incentives for businesses that fall within the
scope of the SMEs by establishing a favorable fiscal regime.
― Reducing the costs relating to the incorporation of existing
corporate structure
― Creating new legal corporate structure such as an
“Entreprise Unipersonnelle à Responsabilité Limitée” (Sole
enterprises with limited liability)
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8. ACCESS TO FINANCING
― Most of women-owned businesses are self-financed
― Difficulty in obtaining banking loans:
• insufficiency of bank loans
• high pricing of loans
• high level of collateralization
― Solutions implemented in Lebanon to remedy the unavailability of
financing:
• Kafalat guaranteed loans.
• Micro – credit regulations introduced by Banque du Liban.
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9. CONCLUSION
1. Implement a legal framework that is not complicated to
encourage women to formally establish businesses
2. Reduce business registration costs and minimize the
paperwork required to register a business
3. Establishing a One-Stop shop for micro-enterprises
4. Support and further develop the services offered by Kafalat
and develop similar enterprises. 9

10. CONCLUSION
5. Offer women access to further education and business training.
6. Support women to have greater market exposure, technical
know-how, as well as networking and strategic partnership
opportunities.
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