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Industry stakeholders have proffered solutions and supports for the optimisation of the country’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) development.
They made this known at the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Business Optimisation Clinic held in Lagos.
The deputy president, NBCC, Ray Atelly said that, the Business Optimisation Clinic is designed to create a platform where solutions are proffered to business challenges by a versatile team of experts from various agencies charged with MSME development.
He said that this Clinic is one of the Chamber’s initiatives to not only engage and empower MSMEs but to provide access to professional guidance and remedies to business challenges.
Director, Strategy, Funding and Stakeholder Management, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), Mrs Sheila Ojei, said the agency was committed to improving access to finance, strengthening MSME institutional capacity, and formulating programmes and policies designed to improve the business environment in Lagos State.
She said financing is important to the growth of MSMEs, explaining the business finance is the process of funding business operations with money from outside the business.
She urged MSMEs to use funds received from outside the business for business purpose, saying that this is one of the problems why SMEs are not able to repay loans as the loan taken were not used for the intended purpose.
She noted further that “by empowering MSMEs we are enabling them to create more jobs.”
The director-general, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Malam Farouk Salim, said that MSMEs could make or mar a country’s economic potential, based on the presence or absence of standards and certification.
Salim, represented by head, SME Desk, SON, Mrs Phebean Arumemi, tasked MSME operators to get plugged into the SON enabling business environment, developed by the federal government to support their growth.
He urged businesses to maintain zero tolerance for the manufacture, trade or patronage of fake and substandard products, urging them to join hands with the SON to fight the exportation or importation of substandard products.
The director-general, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mrs Mojisola Adeyeye, said the agency would continue to evolve customer-focused initiatives to support businesses and the MSME sector.
Adeyeye, represented by deputy director, NAFDAC, Mr Ayankop Ayankop, said that the pledge was to assure safety, efficacy and quality of regulated products manufactured, distributed, imported, sold or used.
She charged MSMEs to meet up with the registration and regulatory requirements needed to obtain marketing authorisation in line with global best practices for products.
Also, managing director, Bank of Industry (BoI), Mr Olukayode Pitan, noted that in spite of their strategic role to national development, MSME faced key challenges that hampered their ability to compete, and indeed succeed.
Pitan noted difficulty in accessing finance had been identified as the biggest challenge that MSMEs face in Nigeria, attributing the development to the highly unstructured nature of MSMEs, high interest rates, long and tedious administrative processes, poor book keeping, lack of credit history, collateral, and lack of awareness of funding sources.
