Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Mr Olawale Fasanya, has said the current global economic crisis may result in a dip in the number of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
The SMEDAN DG stated this in Abuja yesterday at the D-8 Forum on Small and Medium Scale Enterprises and Health Market. The D-8 Organization for Economic Co-operation is a coalition of eight member countries comprising Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Malaysia.
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He said, “The protracted war between Russia and Ukraine has further compounded the challenges of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises sub-sector in Nigeria and I am sure the case is not too different in other D-8 member states.”
Fasanya stated that the last survey of MSMEs in Nigeria saw a drop of over two million MSMEs due to the COVID-19 pandemic, local and global socio-economic interplays.
“My worry now is that another count of MSMEs in Nigeria may show a further decrease in their number as new emerging global issues are regularly being thrown up. The impact of a stunted or decreasing MSME sub-sector is a dwindling GDP, increased insecurity, high rate of unemployment and several other social vices, especially among the youth population,” Fasanya said.
He, therefore, called for a well-developed MSME sub-sector and integration among D-8 Member States to add value to the cardinal objective of the establishment of the organisation with a focus on economic integration among members.
Also speaking, the Global Director, D8 Health and Social Protection (HSP), Dr Ado Mohammed, noted that since its establishment, modest achievements have been made in trade and agriculture.
Mohammed, however, noted that member countries need to deepen human capital development in order to boost economic growth.
