Quantcast
Channel: Small Business and Entreprenuership – The Nation Nigeria
Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 337

Group urges Buhari to address SMEs funding

$
0
0

Associationof Micro Entrepreneurs of Nigeria(AMEN) president, Prince Saviour Iche  has urged  the  government to address  funding  challenges  of small  and medium enterprises (SMEs) as  the  current economic situation  has placed financial pressure on all companies.

Speaking  with The Nation, Iche  said, with access to working capital remaining a substantial challenge for most businesses, especially SMEs, there is a  need to create  alternatives  as  the resultant cycle of liquidity shortfalls puts further pressure on their ability to conduct business and service overheads.

Although many businesses are aware of potential sources of funding, he said,  the costs and requirements for accessing funding are  prohibitive, as a result, many potential entrepreneurs are prevented from accessing secured debt financing from  financial institutions.

He implored banks to establish SMEs to promote entrepreneurial development and provide finance to local businesses.

Unreliable electricity supply, poor quality and limited breadth of road and rail networks, and poor communications infrastructure, he said,  are  having a significant impact on the cost of doing business.

To ameliorate  this,  he   called  on the  incoming  government  to    make  energy an urgent priority to  save enterprises  from collapsing following  increasing  expenditure  on  generators to run their  factories.

Iche  said businesses have been forced  to depend on generating their power  needs  as  current problems with load shedding is  not helping energy throughput for  industrial consumption.

While   urging    the incoming government to   explore and bring to fruition opportunities to secure  power supply ,  Iche  stressed  the need  to  intensify infrastructure development such as roads and  electricity, adding  that achieving  the  vision of a more prosperous and productive nation will require successful local entrepreneurs.

He reiterated  that  SMEs believe that they shared  responsibilities for employment creation, poverty reduction and youth development, but need  the  government support  to  participate in the national  effort  at improving standard of living, reducing crime rate, increase in per capita income and rapid growth in Gross Domestic Product(GDP) among others.

He noted that  the  economy  needs  industrialisation policies to  favour medium and large enterprises, to stimulate economic growth and development, adding  that renewed emphasis on the SMEs is  a catalyst to the nation’s   industrialisation quest.

The post Group urges Buhari to address SMEs funding appeared first on The Nation.


Viewing all articles
Browse latest Browse all 337

Trending Articles



<script src="https://jsc.adskeeper.com/r/s/rssing.com.1596347.js" async> </script>