FG to facilitate concessionary funding for SMEs

The Federal Government will facilitate a ‘well planned concessionary funding initiatives’ that will help Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) overcome the problem of access to low-cost financing, President Muhammadu Buhari said.

In a speech delivered on his behalf, Tuesday in Abuja, by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the president said SMEs were grossly undeserved in terms of low-cost financing, adding that reasons for this could include how to deal with the sheer scale of numbers of SMEs that need to access concessionary funds in order to make an appreciable impact, among others.

The vice president, who spoke in Abuja at the SME Financing Conference with the theme ’Bridging the Nigerian SME Funding Gap’ convened by the Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce, Kaduna State chapter and the Economic Affairs Section of the United States Embassy, however, assured that working through cooperatives and trade organisations, the funding could be accessed by large numbers of SMEs.

He said the importance of financing SMEs had never been lost on the governments, but for lack of access to affordable loans, adding that several deliberate and sustained financial initiatives had been put in place by the Central Bank of Nigeria except that SMEs still remain grossly undeserved.

Earlier, Charles Rivkin, US assistant secretary of state, Economic and Business Affairs, in his address, said “when it’s good for SMEs in any country, it is good for everybody and with the huge population potentials of Nigeria, SMEs remain the driver if adequate and easy-to-access funds are allocated to the sector.”