FG plans increased registration of MSMEs
Director-General, SMEDAN, Dr. Dikko Rada
The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has announced plans to begin a massive registration of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country next year.
The Director-General, SMEDAN, Dr. Dikko Rada, stated that the move was to give the agency a sense of direction on policy guidelines on how to assist, encourage and surmount challenges hindering the grow of the MSME sub sector.
Rada at a national stakeholders’ engagement to review the national policy on MSMEs in Lagos, stated that having a database for MSMEs in the country would also help to catch up with the rest of world in terms of technology and innovation, saying data is an essential tool to achieve any meaningful development as a nation.
He noted that the government is assiduously working to provide an enabling environment that would allow MSMEs and even large businesses to flourish.
“In furtherance of the efforts, this administration has designed and is implementing a number of policies and programmes to improve the business environment and upscale the capacity of MSME to thrive.
Earlier, the Chairman Governing Board, SMEDAN, Femi Pedro, said the national document must be reviewed every four years to capture new trends, new events and contemporary activities in the MSME space.
“At the end of the day, we would collate all the views from different stakeholders and send it to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for approval and once it is approved, we will have a new national policy on MSME which would be operating for a minimum of 4 years.
“The document should be ready for the FEC’s approval in the next three months and for the mass registration of MSMEs, we have already started but looking for more funding particularly from outside sources not only the federal government. Hopefully, the registration should start by January next year. It is a project that I have passion for and I do not think an agency should exist without having a database for the people we are serving. We need to know where they are, what they are doing, the challenges and how we can address them”, he added.
