Federal Government says it is ensuring that small scale businesses transit into formalised enterprises that can contribute meaningfully to the economy and drive growth through its National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP).
Government’s NEDEP initiative spearheaded by the Federal Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment and its parastatal comprising of the Bank of Industry (BoI), SMEDAN and Industrial Training Fund (ITF) are already assisting the growth of MSMES in the country.
Also, the Presidential Council on MSMES, which is headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, has also added the Corporate Affairs Commission to the fray towards ensuring facilitating easier and faster registration of businesses, which is key in ensuring informal business formalise.
Aisha Abubakar, minister of state for industry, trade and investment, told BusinessDay on the sidelines of Tomato Policy launch that through the NEDEP programme, the Federal Government was on course in ensuring MSMES were formalised.
Aisha informed also that the SMEDAN through NEDEP initiative provided business support services to the MSMES and helped their business bankable. Also, the ITF provides the skills for job component, whereas the BoI provides them with the required funding.
One of the key steps in formalising the MSME, already taken by the present administration is through opening of agricultural desks in SMEDAN to ensure proper growth of small-scale businesses, the minister said.
Nevertheless, stakeholders have always expressed concern that despite the fact that 96 percent of Nigerian businesses are SMES when compared with 53 percent in the United States and 65 percent in Europe, the sector contributes approximately 1 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, a development largely attributable to several constraints that are not limited to lack of funding, infrastructure and low level of productivity.
But the minister said the Presidential Council on enabling Business Environment was already handling any concerns regarding MSMES in the country.
“The Vice President is heading all our efforts to ensure MSMEs contribute their quota to economic development, that even informed the MSME clinic currently on going around the country,” Aisha said.
Speaking further on government’s further plans to develop MSMES through industrial clusters, Aisha said, “Regarding industrial development centres, the ministry through its Agency, the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has received financing from the African Development Bank’s Medium Income Country Technical Assistance Fund (MICTAF) to carry out a study on the viability of developing and transforming the 23 Industrial Development Centres into Industrial Clusters.”
The objective of the project, she explained is to establish state of the art Common Infrastructure Facility Centres that will improve the global competitiveness of Nigerian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), through manufacturing excellence and insuring sustainable growth through collective wisdom and result oriented efforts.
In the course of the implementation of this project, six (6) Industrial Development Centres (IDCs) would be transformed and will serve as Case Study for MSME Growth and Innovation.
It is hoped that the Project will be scaled up to include the remaining 17 of the 23 IDCs by 2018,the Minister noted.
