Presented at the July 2012 Meeting of the OECD-MENA Initiative's Working Group on SME Policy, Entrepreneurship and Human Capital Development http://www.oecd.org/mena/investment

1. High Growth Enterprises in the MENA region
Nadia Belhaj Hassine
nbelhaj@idrc.org.eg

2. Outlines
1- The Economic Reality of the MENA region
2- Objectives of the New Entrepreneurs and High
Growth Enterprises in the MENA Region report
3- Steps foreword

3. The Economic Reality of the MENA region
With bloated public sector and state owned enterprises,
stronger private sector growth is needed to respond to the
pressing employment challenges in the MENA countries.
What kind of private sector do we need: small entrepreneurial
businesses or large corporations? … the question is yet to be
explored…
But there is a wide consensus on the importance of
entrepreneurship as a mechanism for job creation, innovation
and lasting development in the region.
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4. The Economic Reality of the MENA region
The nature and structure of entrepreneurial activity,
as well as their innovativeness and growth potential
are critical to the contribution of entrepreneurship
and SMES to the prosperity and social cohesion in
MENA.
Opportunity driven, export oriented and high growth
firms have significant positive effects on jobs
generation and employment opportunities , and on
sustainable inclusive growth.
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5. The Economic Reality of the MENA region
• Research on entrepreneurship and SMEs is yet to be
developed in MENA, but what do we know already:
• M/SMEs account for around 95% of all nonagricultural firms, and more than 75% percent of
private sector employment
• Their contribution to value-added range from 30%
in the UAE to 80% in Egypt.
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6. The Economic Reality of the MENA region
• The prevalence of entrepreneurial activity in MENA
countries is below what might be expected for
countries at their level of development (lower than
most emerging and low-income countries).
• The prevalence is even lower for formally registered
firms.
• Middle east and Gulf states have the lowest rates.
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7. The Economic Reality of the MENA region
• New entrepreneurs in MENA tend to be males from
younger age groups, among better-educated and
upper-third income households. They are generally
already working in a full-time or a part-time job.
• Opportunity-driven entrepreneurship is higher than
in other emerging economies.
• Necessity-driven entrepreneurs represent around
27% and tend to be from lower education and
lower household income groups.
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8. The Economic Reality of the MENA region
• The majority of ventures are in consumer-oriented
sectors. Only few MENA economies register quite
important shares of firms in transforming and
extractive sectors. Also, new businesses show low
international orientation.
• Supporting the startup, survival and growth of firms
in MENA requires facilitating access to financing,
promoting advisory services and new technologies;
and improving the business environment.
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9. The Economic Reality of the MENA region
What do we need to know
• A job-generating growth strategy relies on
promoting the private sector and in particular on
enhancing high growth enterprises.
• But knowledge on high growth enterprises in MENA
is weak…
• The New Entrepreneurs and High Growth
Enterprises in the MENA Region report aims to fill
some of the knowledge gap.
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10. • It examines in detail a number of high growth enterprises
in five MENA countries: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia,
and UAE with the focus to:
• Compared their characteristics to similar enterprises in
developed and other emerging economies and
benchmark MENA economies performances.
• Explore the obstacles for high potential enterprises to
become high growth? Investigate evidence of a new
generation of entrepreneurs in MENA
• Understand how is the public policy and business
environment likely to promote high growth firms? What
has been done and what remains to be done.
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11. Steps Foreword:
-Development of larger and richer databases on micro and
small enterprises with better representation of high potential
and high growth ones.
-Deepen understanding on the dynamics of high growth
enterprises.
-How the changing Economic and Political Landscape of the
Arab region is affecting the private sector.
-Increase efforts to coordinate actions and research in the
fields of SMEs and high performance firms.