The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has called on stakeholders in the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) ecosystem to create a more enabling environment for MSMEs to grow, prosper and contribute to the economy.
CEO of SMEDAN, Dr. Olawale Fasanya, gave this advice during a two-day business summit for MSMEs, coordinated by the Innovation Center for Leadership and Entrepreneurial Development (ICLED). meeting with SMEDAN held on Wednesday in Lagos.
The summit is themed “MSME Innovation in Nigeria: Facing Disruption and Embracing Change in the New Digital World”.
Fasanya said the latest survey the agency conducted with the National Bureau of Statistics in 2017 showed that Nigeria had about 41.2 million MSMEs and in 2020 it was about 39.6 million.
“We should see to how we can mainstream these 96.9 per cent micro enterprises to small and medium sized; and if you look at the type of crisis we are having in terms of youth unemployment and we say we have 39.6 million MSMEs, assuming we employ one each, a lot will be off the market.
“This is part of the mandate of the agency to ensure that we have the capacity to make a small legion of that to enable them contribute more to the GDP.’’
The SMEDAN boss also noted that the MSMEs had made an encouraging contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product of 46.31 per cent, saying that more needed to be done.
“Their contribution to exports is very small compared to India, which has about 42.5% MSME contribution to exports; Similarly, in 2017, their contribution to exports was around 7.27%, but the 2020 figure shows us that there was a decline to 6.21%.
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“This means that SMEDAN should cooperate more and collaborate more with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council to help us have more MSMEs, especially with the recent African Continental Free Trade Area , in which Nigeria is an important player among the 64 African countries”, Fasanya. speak.
Professor Stephen Aliu, Group Head of the Center for Enterprise Development and Wealth Creation and a Lecturer at ICLED Business School, said promoting the growth and development of MSMEs will require stakeholders to take action. implement best practices, as has been done in other climates.
“Small and medium-sized enterprises often have difficulty accessing financing due to limited collateral or credit history.
“Governments and financial institutions should develop tailored financial products such as microloans, venture capital funds, or crowd funding platforms to provide affordable and accessible financing options for SMEs.
“Additionally, promoting financial literacy and offering business advisory services can help SMEs improve their financial management capabilities.
“Simplify regulations and reduce bureaucratic barriers, enhance entrepreneurship education and training, foster innovation and technology adoption, facilitate market access and internationalisation and build supportive ecosystems.
“Implementing above practices concomitantly by governments, regulatory agencies and other stakeholders can create an enabling environment for SMEs to thrive, be resilient, contribute significantly to economic growth, and create employment opportunities,’’ he said.
