NAN-HE-11
Business
By Lucy Nwachukwu
Abuja, Sept. 22, 2016(NAN) The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), has urged small scale producers to work in clusters to help them in sustaining their businesses.
Mr Wale Fasanya, Director of Enterprise Development Promotion in SMEDAN, gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.
“We are encouraging them to work in clusters because we are encouraging common facilities.
“For example, if you are a micro leather producer, another person is producing shoes sole and somebody else is making buckles, you cannot be master of all trades.
“So, if within the same value chain, when one sews the shoe, you give somebody to produce buckle, you will now jointly identify markets, when you do that, it will be easier for everyone.
“One, it will bring down cost even of raw materials, it will bring down the general cost of production and then, they will be able to identify markets jointly,’’ he said.
Fasanya said SMEDAN was also trying to devise ways of linking micro entrepreneurs to big businesses so that they could source from them.
He noted that SMEDAN was also working at ensuring government support to small business enterprises.
“We are already talking with the Bureau of Public Procurement to see that in their Act, a percentage is established for outsourcing from SMEs.
“This is such that if we are supplying anything to government, it should be produced by our SMEs or we will ensure that 60 to 70 per cent will be out sourced from SMEs.
“So, if government procurement is keyed towards them, it will help and we, through the business information centre and through business earnings can link them to markets.
“This is because what you are producing may be somebody else’s raw materials and you may not know and if we do all these, I am sure things will get better,’’ Fasanya said.
On the N220billion MSME Funds, he told NAN that the small business owners had been accessing it, though, they did not go to CBN to access it but the money is channelled through financial institutions.
He said that one of the problems of SMEs had been that most times, when they accessed government funding, they did not want to pay back.
“And in the CBN now, there is no more free money, if you are serious with your business and you access funds at single digit interest rate, you are supposed to pay back.
“CBN is going through banks, through financial institutions, and when the financial institutions access from CBN, they now lend to SMEs that will be forced to pay back,’’ Fasanya said. (NAN)
LCN/MO/PDE
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(Edited by Morayo Omolade and Controlled by Peter Ejiofor)