Around US$2 million will help Myanmar develop a platform to finance small businesses, reducing the inequalities between SMEs and larger players.
The DaNa Facility will invest over $1.9 million in the “Shwe Lan” project which aims to initially provide access to working capital for 300 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the country which employ the poor and women, with at least 30pc of those businesses, i.e. 90 companies, female-owned.
Shwe Lan will offer supply chain financing to MSMEs in two stages. In the first phase, it will provide businesses with access to finance by introducing a “merchant financing” product, targeting MSMEs that act as distributors of the larger companies operating across the country. In the second phase, it will provide an “invoice discounting” product where MSMEs are able to use confirmed orders as collateral for loans.