MSMEs hit 3m registration base, generate 90 per cent employment

Registered Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMES) in Nigeria has hit a record three million capacity.

The sector’s growth output has also accounted for 90 per cent of Nigeria’s employment rate through national policy on MSMEs.

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The Chairman of the Governing Board of Small and Medium  Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Otunba Olufemi Pedro, disclosed this in Abuja during the agency’s regular valedictory meeting of the board inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2018 to mark its exit after the four-year tenure.

Pedro stressed that the feat was recorded through SMEDAN’s implementation of MSMEs Mass Registration Programme (MMRP) orchestrated by the development of a database.

He added that through the initiative, micro-enterprise, as well as medium-sized ones from every sector and geographical location in Nigeria, had registered on the MMRP portal with full details, including the type of business, size, number of employees, turnover, names and addresses of business owners.

Pedro also lauded the president and the National Assembly’s gesture in enhancing the budgetary allocation of the agency “which made it possible for us to implement high impact programmes such as the cash grant for micro-enterprise, the OLOP project and several others.

“As we exit the board of the agency, it is our wish that it will continue to receive the much-needed support from the government so that it can deliver on its mandate,” Pedro said.

The Director-General of SMEDAN, Dikko Umaru Radda, assured of the agency’s poise to continue with all the projects it had been supporting with the board.

“We will continue to imbibe the culture they had imbibed in the agency and we will continue to support.

“We will continue where they stopped in carrying on with the mandate and assignment given to us,” Radda stressed.

He added: “I believe the Federal Government will continue to support in the area of MSMEs development because this is one of the major areas it is giving attention to.”