A delegation from the Commonwealth Secretariat on Thursday in Abuja pledged to support Nigeria’s drive to grow the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector.
Mrs Opeyemi Abebe, Head of Section, Trade and Competitiveness Programme, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, made the pledge when she led a delegation to meet with business membership organisaion in Nigeria.
The meeting organised by the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) targets to tap ideas to develop the MSMEs sector.
The business membership organisation in Nigeria comprises government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) which has dealings with MSMEs in their various organisations.
Abebe, who described Commonwealth’s passion for Nigeria as great, said that the country had the human potential to grow its economy through MSMEs.
According to her, Nigerians are good in terms of skills.
“The Commonwealth delegation is in Nigeria to support the county’s efforts to diversify its economy,’’ Abebe said.
According to her, MSMEs plays a big role in growing the country, and Commonwealth will do its own part to ensure Nigeria has a success story in this direction.
In his opening remark, the Director-General of SMEDAN, Olawale Fasanya, expressed the agency’s commitment to reposition MSMEs to become more competitive.
Represented by Mr Monday Ewans, Acting Director-General of SMEDAN, Fasanya said, “government’s plan is to drive the sector to become more competitive at the international market level’’.
He also said that government was determined to ensure the MSMEs sector becomes the highest employer of labour where 75 per cent of the country’s workforce would be proud of the sector.
According to him, all these aims are part of the reasons SMEDAN plans to tap from the abundant of knowledge resident with the Commonwealth of Nations.
“We have a total of 39 million MSMEs in Nigeria according to the last survey carried out by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and when you look at that number, it is large.
“We want a situation where the MSMEs export will be appreciated. When it comes to export, it is just 6.4 per cent, this is very small and this is because Nigeria MSMEs are not globally competitive.
“We have products, natural resources and human capital but our natural resources have not been able to develop competitively,’’ Fasanya said.
He said that the agency was partnering with Commonwealth Secretariat to tap ideas on how to grow the sector, adding “it is an opportunity for Nigeria to benefit from the Commonwealth services.
Fasanya urged various MDAs participating in the programme to explore the opportunity to grow MSMEs from their various organisations.
