▪︎Minister of Industry, Doris-Anite
The Centre For The Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) says that statistical data from the Small and Medium Enterprises Agency of Nigeria [SMEDAN], and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) are valuable resources for the government’s economic policy makers .
Dr. Muda Yusuf, the CEO of CPPE, made this known during the 4th edition of the National Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME) Business Roundtable, with the theme, ‘MSMEs : The Catalyst for Nigeria’s Economic Rejuvenation and Growth’.
Dr. Yusuf, who was the guest speaker at the event, said that the statistical insights have policy implications and could be useful for effective policy targeting.
He cited a SMEDAN data survey on the MSMEs sector which shows that there are we 39.65 million MSMEs in Nigeria.
” 96.9% of these MSMEs are micro enterprises; 3.1% are small and medium enterprises.
The highest number of these enterprises are in Lagos.
The key sectors to which they belong are agriculture, 38.4%; Trade, 33.3%; other services, 9.8%; Manufacturing, 4.2%.
The SMEDAN survey further revealed that 96.2% of the MSMEs are sole proprietors, while partnerships constitute a mere 3.3%.
” The labour data published by the NBS revealed that over 90 percent of jobs in the economy are created in the informal sector in the first quarter of 2023,” he said.
What the data also shows is that policy makers need to robustly engage small businesses across all sectors in order to determine the appropriate policy interventions for the promotion of economic growth through the MSMEs pathways.
The demands of the small businesses vary across sectors which is why sector specific engagements are very critical to unlock the job creation opportunities in the small business space.
Such engagements would also be very useful for policy feedbacks that could be used for policy reviews and finetuning.
The sectoral distribution data is also very valuable for policy. It is useful for proportional intervention to promote the growth of small businesses and accelerate job creation.
The data also highlighted the major bottlenecks to the productivity and growth of the small businesses.
These include access to capital, power supply, energy cos, multiple taxation, regulatory compliance costs and many more.
Again, these are good pointers for policy makers to shape their intervention measures to boost the growth of small business and create more jobs.