Bahrain's Labour Fund and one of the Gulf's main industrial consulting bodies have signed an agreement to offer consultancy services to the private sector in the kingdom.

The acting chief executive of the fund, Abdulellah Al Qassimi, signed a memorandum of understanding with General Organisation for Industrial Consulting (GOIC) technical assistance head Mohammed Rashed Al Mohanadi.

The aim is to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs) within the framework of an existing enterprise development support (EDS) programme.

'The EDS initiative was launched for a pilot period from June to November last year, through which the outcome was positive and provided us with feedback on developing and fine tuning the initiative,' said Al Qassimi.

'Since then we have added a number of schemes and we are planning to officially launch the EDS programme during the first week of July this year.'

Under the EDS programme the SMEs are being offered co-financing, business and IT advice to enhance their productivity.

GOIC was launched in 1976 by GCC members hoping to develop their industries by improving access to specialist knowledge, consultancy and technical services.

So far, 60 local establishments have officially enroled into the programme and another 90 are in the pipeline. Following the deal with GOIC there are now 42 service providers who are willing to play a part of the national initiative. TradeArabia News Service