The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) has commenced nationwide registration of Micro, small and medium businesses.

The Director General of the Agency Dr. Dikko Radda said the ongoing mass registration, currently at the pilot phase, would benefits MSMEs by promoting capacity building and post-intervention support services for micro enterprises. This he said would enable the registered MSMEs in the database to subsequently access finance, market, workspace, business, insurance, technology amongst others.

The Chairman of SMEDAN, Otunba Femi Pedro believes the registration scheme will also create millions of jobs across the entire country.

According to Pedro, the justification for a database of grassroots entrepreneurs cannot be over-emphasised, including moving informal enterprises to the formal sector. This, he said would industrialise the nation, develop the rural economy, stem youth restiveness and unemployment as well as create the platform for sustainable economic growth and development in the country.

The ongoing exercise which is being handled by Michael Jacobs Ltd a reputable international mass registration company is targeting the integration of over 40 million micro, small and medium scale enterprises across the entire county into the database.

The SMEs and startups are pivotal to the economy, the main drivers of employment, industry, innovation and export diversification. From the emerging economies to the world’s most industrialised, the SMEs are crucial. Brazil’s six million small businesses account for 52 per cent of the country’s formal jobs, creating 47,700 jobs in January 2014 alone and contributing 20 per cent to GDP, says Brazil’s Institute of Geography and Statistics. They are so important that South Korea set up a ministry of SMEs and Start-ups that says the SMEs there account for 99 per cent of all enterprises, 88 per cent of total employment, 38 per cent of exports and 51 per cent of domestic value-added.

Over 37.1 million micro and SMEs in the country still contribute 47.8 per cent to GDP but only 7.2 per cent to overall exports, according to SMEDAN. At the heart of the weakness of the SMEs is lack of electricity that makes our products uncompetitive. While India’s SMEs sector today has access to international markets as its major target, Nigeria’s is still grappling with access to electricity, said SMEDAN’s boss. The European Union Commission emphasises access to finance schemes for the SMEs that constitute 99 per cent of all business in the EU countries. (The Nation)

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