Relief may soon come the way of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country, as the Federal Government has concluded plans to address the funding challenges experienced in the sector by unveiling a single digit interest rate regime for on-lending to such businesses.
According to the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment (FMITI), efforts are underway to bring down the cost of borrowing available to small businesses as well as making such funds available.
The Minister, Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Okechukwu Enelemah, said the federal government through its government development finance institution would lend within the capacity of government to SMEs at single digit interest rate.
Enelamah during a one-day interactive forum with captains of industries in Lagos, yesterday, noted that the federal government is reviewing challenges limiting the growth of the real sector.
He said: “We are going to lend within the capacity of government and the government development finance institution at single digit interest rate.
He said: “We are going to lend within the capacity of government and the government development finance institution at single digit interest rate.
“From my understanding, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) wants to bring down the inflation rate because it steals from pockets of the citizenry and there are many ameliorating steps being taken to make sure that funding made available for the most vulnerable in the society.
“As the economy takes off, we will be able to improve supply of funds to the real sector to help to tame inflation. We need to do more to improve production by making it easier for the producers to produce goods locally to act as downplay for inflation.”
He noted that the purpose of the meeting was to engage the stakeholders in industry and the players cutting across the various value-chain such as the SMEs, the big players and everything in between.
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“We have heard the stakeholders and we have taken notes which is going to form part of the engagement process we will be having with the rest of government agencies both at the federal, state and local level to address the needs of our people.
“One of the ways we will be addressing the needs is the ease of doing business and I am happy to say that this one of the areas where the President has taken interest by forming a presidential council on it to be chaired by the Vice President called the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council and one of this council is to work across ministries to identify those bottlenecks an challenges in doing business in Nigeria and you will be going to see the impacts in the weeks, months and years ahead.”
On the state of the economy, he pointed out plans to engage the private sectors to seeks ways to address issues affecting the economy, saying that in partnership, both parties can identify the problems and look at the ones that can be addressed immediately going forward.
“One of the areas of interest for us is how to reduce the cost of borrowing for SMEs, industries and the key players. One of the promises we made when we assumed office is that we said we are not going to work in silos and if you look at the way the government is running today, we have economic management team which cuts across and other inter-ministerial agencies to work across board to solve the problem to achieve a holistic complete solutions rather than solutions in silos,” he added.
The Director-General, Standards Organisation of Nigeria ( SON), Dr. Paul Angya, said the agency is developing capacity, improving standards, increasing its testing capacities with laboratories, certification for export.
The Director-General, Standards Organisation of Nigeria ( SON), Dr. Paul Angya, said the agency is developing capacity, improving standards, increasing its testing capacities with laboratories, certification for export.
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