The National Agency for the Promotion of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (ANPME) was created in 2002 under Article 56 of Law No. 53-00 forming the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) Charter, replacing the Industrial Development Office (ODI). It is a public establishment placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and New Technologies (MICNT). Its mission is to work for the promotion, development and upgrading of SMEs. The ANPME has given itself a new identity and changed its name to “Maroc PME”.
The implementation of ANPME’s missions has gone through two phases:
- The first phase extends from the date of its creation in 2002 until 2008. The Agency’s activity was then limited to providing technical and financial support to SMEs in difficulty. Funding came from international aid, in particular from the European Union under the MEDA programme;
- The second phase is marked by the implementation of the National Pact for Industrial Emergence (PNEI), signed before His Majesty the King in 2009, which constitutes the reference framework for the signature of the State/ANPME 2009-2015 contractual framework for strengthening the competitiveness of SMEs. The underlying guiding principle of the latter is the gradual empowerment of the financing of SME support activities. In particular, it provides for ANPME to benefit from an allocation of MAD 600 million to be paid into a Business Competitiveness Support Fund (FACE).
In 2009, ANPME shifted from its role as a mere technical assistance and advisory body for SMEs in difficulty to that of a support body for the national economic fabric as a whole, endowed with significant public financial resources, which it manages.
Missions:
- Support for the upgrading of SMEs and their permanent adaptation to market requirements;
- The promotion of partnership and networks of SMEs;
- Support to SME support structures;
- Strengthening the local consultancy sector;
- The establishment of a permanent listening to SMEs;
- The adoption of a strategy of communication and proximity;
- The implementation of an active policy of cooperation and partnership;
- Participation and increased involvement in the improvement of the SME environment.
As part of its mission to support the competitiveness of SMEs, the Agency manages a number of programs, including:
- Imtiaz programme: designed to support enterprises with high growth potential and development projects by granting a premium for tangible and/or intangible investment.
- Moussanada Programme: The Moussanada programme aims to support 500 businesses a year with the main objective of improving productivity and speeding up the use of information technology within businesses, thereby strengthening their competitiveness, particularly in terms of cost, quality and deadlines.
- Support programme for the textile sector
- INMAA Program “School Factory”: which objective is to help 300 to 600 Moroccan SMEs with high potential to successfully complete their operational transformation on a large scale through the implementation of “Lean manufacturing” techniques, delivered in a simulated environment within a model factory.
- Infitah: consists of providing very small enterprises (VSEs) with free introductory sessions on information technology (IT) to enable them to discover the benefits of IT for the development of their activities and the improvement of their competitiveness.
Morocco SME (ex ANPME) started in 2015 a new development cycle based on feedback, on the paradigm shift in industrialization, focused on the development of competitive ecosystems and on the specificities of business categories, in particular, very small enterprises. This perspective is in line with the logic of enriching the Agency’s action around three levers: improving the competitiveness of high-impact enterprises, contributing to inclusive growth and promoting entrepreneurship. Maroc PME is under the supervision of the Ministry of Industry, Investment, Trade and the Digital Economy. The 2015-2020 State-Morocco SME contractual framework aims in particular to :
- Strengthen the competitiveness of ecosystems and SMEs by activating the following levers: operational performance, investment, creativity and co-development and access to markets.
- Promote entrepreneurship and animation of the entrepreneurial ecosystem through the deployment of the status of auto-entrepreneur and support for the formalization of activities.
- To create a new generation of entrepreneurs and SMEs with a structuring and high-impact business model.
The roadmap 2015 – 2020 of Maroc PME is declined through five programs targeting five segments of companies namely auto-entrepreneurs, partner companies of ecosystems, SMEs, VSEs and companies with high growth potential. Such aspirations clearly call for a new Agency business model, now structured around three key areas: development of support programmes aligned with ecosystems and territories, synergy among partners to relay Agency action, particularly in the Kingdom’s regions, and capitalization on the impacts recorded, good practices identified and other entrepreneurial successes.
