The Small and Medium Enterprises General Authority “Monsha’at” announced in its report for the second quarter of 2022, issued today, that the number of SMEs reached 892,063 enterprises, an increase of 25.6% compared with the fourth quarter of 2021. Riyadh Region accounts for 35.4% of all enterprises, Makkah Region for 21%, and the Eastern Province for 12.7%, while the report noted that 81% of these enterprises are classified as micro and small enterprises. The report covered the food and beverage sector in terms of the investment funding obtained by enterprises operating in the sector, which received the largest share of funding over the first half of 2022 compared with companies operating in other sectors, according to the MAGNiTT platform’s report for the first half of 2022. The food and beverage sector secured investments of around $178 million (SAR 700 million) over the first half of this year. The report also reviewed the 244% growth in investment funding obtained by Saudi startups, reaching SAR 2.19 billion in the first half of 2022 on an annual basis, with the Kingdom ranked as the second most active venture capital market in the Middle East and North Africa region during the same period. The second-quarter report also addressed empowering and supporting women in entrepreneurship and stimulating women-led SMEs, revealing that enterprises owned by women make up 45% of all startup owners in the Kingdom, double the rate achieved in 2017. This increase is the result of empowering women in the world of entrepreneurship, which ensures stronger competitive advantages for SMEs through skills development programs and the integration of technologies into business operations, alongside the provision of products and services suited to the purpose women entrepreneurs pursue, making them more able to compete and grow. The quarterly report included a special look at the entrepreneurship and SME environment in Makkah Region, which is witnessing significant entrepreneurial activity, as the region is home to more than 21% of all SMEs in the Kingdom. The quarterly report also shed light on Saudi coffee and the significant activity this industry has seen recently, revealing that the Kingdom has more than 400,000 coffee trees, a 70% rise in the production of Khawlani coffee, and investments in this sector of nearly $319 million (SAR 1.2 billion) by the Saudi Coffee Company over the next ten years. In this edition, the Monsha’at quarterly report hosted, through a series of interviews, a group of entrepreneurs, including Ali Shunaimer, co-founder of Jabaliyah and Mango Jazan; Ruaa Saber, founder of Miss Fionka Chocolate; and Bakr Al-Huzaimi, founder of Falak Foods, as well as several experts such as Sami Sarhan, Head of SME Innovation Services at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), and Philip Bahoshy, founder and CEO of MAGNiTT. For more details, the full report is available at: https://www.monshaat.gov.sa/sites/default/files/2022-08/SME%20Monitor%20Quarterly%20Report%20Q2%202022%20-%20AR_0.pdf Micro enterprises are those with 1 to 5 full-time employees or revenues not exceeding SAR 3 million; small enterprises are those with 6 to 49 full-time employees or revenues from SAR 3 to 40 million; and medium enterprises are those with 50 to 249 full-time employees or revenues from SAR 40 to 200 million. An enterprise is classified by size according to whether it meets both criteria, the number of full-time employees and the volume of revenues, together, and where there are exceptions, the higher classification of the two criteria applies.