BoI to disburse N310bn to MSMEs in 5 years
The Bank of Industry (BoI), Nigeria’s most active development finance institution, will make N310 billion available for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) between 2015 and 2019.
Waheed Olagunju, executive director, SMEs, disclosed this during an interactive session between business editors, industry journalists and the management of the bank.
According to Olagunju, the bank targets to disburse N15 billion in 2015 while also creating at least 60,000 jobs from this.
He said the bank will also provide N26.2 billion to MSMEs in 2016 and N45.9 billion in 2017. All other things remaining equal, BoI will also disburse a total of N80.3 billion in 2018 and further N140.6 billion by the end of 2019, he said.
“Access to BoI finance is now as simple as A to Z,” said Olagunju, during the event held in Lagos.
“The truth is that financial resources will always run after good investments. Funds will always be available when the major constraints are either eliminated or reduced considerably,” he stressed.
In line with the National Industrial Revolution Programme (NIRP) and National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP), BoI’s funding focus is directed at industries that add value to and process Nigeria’s vast natural resource endowments, said Olagunju, stressing that sectors of target are agro processing, solid minerals and metals, gas energy and petroleum, engineering ICT and construction as well as pharmaceuticals. Other areas of target are creative industry, and services, which include transport/haulage.
“SMEs are recognised as playing key roles in the economy of any society and Nigeria is not an exception. However, they face numerous challenges including access to finance which can be overcome by appropriate strategies that must address their peculiar characteristics,” he observed, adding that numerous challenges of MSMEs provide for de-risking to make them contribute above 47 percent to GDP and create as much as 75 or 70 percent jobs as obtained in China and Brazil respectively.
BoI is also planning to form a link between the large enterprises and small ones to explore opportunities for MSMEs and along the value chain.
Mohammed Alkali, executive director, Large Enterprises, said the divide between the large enterprises sector and MSMEs is for the smaller enterprises to feed the larger ones in order to forge a proper consolidation of both.
“The divide between the SMEs and the Large Enterprises is a delightful bridge that creates synergy between the two directorates, allowing for entrepreneurial development and growth through linkages and outsourcing that would consolidate the MSMEs the more,” Alkali said, during his presentation at the event.
He explained further that the NIRP and the NEDEP have strategically classified large and small enterprises differently but allows one to feed on the other.
The BoI and the Ministry of Agriculture recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding that empowers the former to manage N13.6 billion meant for financing the integrated rice and cassava mills across the country.
Data show over 70 percent of the Nigerian Population live in the rural areas and depend on agriculture, mainly subsistence, for survival. This means that any meaningful intervention in the sector will have high impact contribution on job creation and poverty reduction, according to Alkali.
He further said the creative industry has also gotten a space in the large enterprise funding, due largely to its contribution of 1.5 percent to the GDP during the re-basing exercise.
“We want the creative industry to do more for the economy and to advance to 5 percent contribution to the GDP. We believe that with the present support, they will improve their present status and contributions, as their films now showcase in cinemas and other advanced countries,” he explained.
ODINAKA ANUDU & HARRISON EDEH