The Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN), Dr. Olawale Fasanya said the agency in partnership with JAiz Bank will commence the disbursement of N1.2 billion matching funds to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises across the country.
Fasanya stated this on Monday in Abuja at a press briefing to commemorate this year’s World MSME day which had theme “Building a stronger future together”
According to him, “SMEDAN have over N600 million match funds on ground and Jaiz Bank is matching it with another N600 million which means there is about N1.2 billion available and when we get our allocation for this year, we will expand,” he said.
He said the pilot scheme commenced with individuals in agri-business and will be expanded to more sectors once funds are available, which is why NIRSAL were involved because of the risk associated with agri-business.
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The DG noted that “The intervention delivers credit as a promotional mechanism to enhance enterprise output, competitiveness and job creation. Prospective beneficiaries can access loans between N500,000 and N2.5M”.
Asked what the agency is doing to cushion the effect of subsidy removal on MSMEs, he explained that SMEDAN “Procured latest equipments/machines using the Common Facility Center model to cut down on operating costs and to enable MSMEs become competitive not just in pricing but also in quality. So far, the CFCs has been established in Abuja (Garment, Furniture and products packaging), Katsina (Garment), Kaduna and Nnewi (production of automotive components) and Ikorodu packaging of fast moving consumer goods,”
Fasanya further stated that plans are on the way to establish the SMEDAN investment company to run its other operations asides the normal subvention it receives from the government, adding that the agency is expecting its operational license soon from the Central Bank of Nigeria to commence operation of the SMEDAN micro-finance bank where MSMEs can access credit easier.
He added that the agency will be conducting another MSME survey next year as the last one was conducted in 2020 during the covid-19 era. He however stated that an MSME competitiveness survey was recently concluded, adding that SMEDAN will be releasing the statistics soon.
