By Linus Aleke, Abuja
The Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), has applauded the latest move by Federal Government (FG), to expand economic relations with Cote D’Ivoire.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has organized Nigeria – Cote D’Ivoire Business Round Table and Exhibition, as part of side line activities for the meeting of ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government to improve trade balance between the two economies.
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Speaking exclusively to our correspondent in Abuja, the Zonal Vice President of NASME, Dr. Nura Bello, said, the major challenge that confront the association is access to market, most especially the African market.
He said: “This bilateral agreement between Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire, will be a very good platform for our SMEs to have access to the Côte d’Ivoire market. This is an international trade, so, we are also pushing forward to see our members export their product to African market in preparation to the take off of Africa continental free trade agreement”.
Dr. Bello however, noted that the number one thing the association wants government to do is funding, stressing that access to capital for business start up is actually very difficult and those already in business that want to expand don’t have the required capital and banks will always request for collateral.
SMEs by their nature, he said don’t have collateral, therefore, the association want the government to make it very easy for SMEs to access finance at cheaper interest rate to enable them expand their businesses and meet up with international request for their products.
He further explained that some of the challenges in accessing loan from the Bank of Industry is the request for guarantors.
According to him, “A loan within N10 million threshold, can only be accessed with two guarantors. SMEs find it difficult to meet this condition because the two guarantors must be high profile persons, such as level 14 officers and above in the civil service. Our members don’t have access to these big men that can stand for them as guarantors. Secondly, Bank of Industry do not give micro loan like N50 thousand or a little above. There are some of our members that just need little capital to start but the least Bank of Industry is giving is N500 thousand, so it is a challenge to our members”.
Dr. Bello, appealed to government to create a funding or grant specifically for micro enterprises, saying that these are people that need support, and they cannot take loan from commercial bank because of the interest rate.
He said: “Give them money as start up but before you give them the money, train them on how to actually do their businesses so that they can have business skills. They may have technical skills to carry on their business but they may not be successful because they don’t have the business skills. So, train them on entrepreneurship skills, give them start up capital and ensure that they are in association where they will be monitored, nurtured to grow and mentored”.
He concluded that if the new start ups are in a group, they would be able to work together as a team and develop their businesses.
