Abuja — There appears to be a new latitude for entrepreneurs in the
country as the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, yesterday, launched a N220 billion
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, MSMEs, fund to provide the much needed
capital for that sub-sector of the economy.
Governor of the CBN, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, said at the 7th MSME
financing conference and D-8 workshop, in Abuja, that the fund would address
challenges of access to capital operators in the sub-sector were facing
currently.
According to him, loans will be given to entrepreneurs at nine percent
interest rate and at a much longer term than what deposit money banks offer
currently.
His words: "The CBN is presenting for launch today the N220Billion
Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund.
"The fund is designed to further enhance access to finance by
MSMEs with the following major objectives; provide wholesale financing windows
for participating financial institutions; improve the capacity of the PFIs to
meet credit needs of MSMEs; provide funds at reduced cost to PFIs; enhance
access of women entrepreneurs to finance by allocating 60 per cent of the Fund
to them; improve access of NGOs/MFIs to finance.
"The fund is one of the element o the Micro Finance policy of the
country which was launch in 2005″.
"We got the Micro Finance bank, which are strong, and capable to
handing such fund after we have done competency requirement test on them, which
we are now confident that we can inject such fund to the Micro Finance
Banks".
Mal. Sanusi indicated that the agricultural sector would also benefit
from the fund , as according to him, part of money would be channeled into
addressing the problem of post-harvest loss, especially among small farmers.
He disclosed that a large portion of the money would be given to women
entrepreneurs to enhance their productivity.
The apex bank's boss argued, "the successful intermediation of the
financial sector Sanusi said lies in the financial market to integrate the
micro entrepreneurs, with low income earners, farmers, artisans into the
financial system to improve the effectiveness of the policy".
He revealed "in 2012 Nigeria had about 8million MSMEs employing
about 42.4million people and contributing about 46.5 per cent of nominal
GDP," but regretted, "in 2012 commercial bank loans to SMEs dropped
at an exponential rate. Analysis of the annual trend in the share of commercial
bank credit to small scale industries indicates a decline of about 7.5 per cent
in 2003 to less than 1 per cent in 2006 and a further decline in 2012 to 0.1
per cent".
Mal. Sanusi said that in view of the exceptional contributions of the
MSMEs, his team at the CBN was determined to strengthen that sub-sector and
urged governments at all levels to join hands with the CBN to create a more
thriving small businesses in the country.
The Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi who spoke on behalf of
the second-tier government said the must be deliberate policy focusing on the
"rural poor."
He also commended CBN for focusing on women, saying, "the fact
that 50 per cent of these fund will go to women, doesn't just make political
sense, it makes more economic sense," and that women had a track record of
micro credit initiative of 100 per cent payback.
No comments:
Post a Comment