NIGERIA’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, is set to lead a discussion and declare open a virtual Open Day with Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria to improve their marketability in the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement, AFCTA.
The event, which seeks to improve quality and market access of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, MSMEs, is being put together by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and will be held on November 16.
In a statement on Thursday, Farouk Salim, the Director-General of the Standard Organisation of Nigeria, SON, said the event focuses on “Improving Product Quality through Standards.”
Salim explained that about five hundred MSMEs from different sectors across the country had confirmed participation in the programme.
He further enumerated that the technical sessions of the programme would be divided into five sections for different sectoral groups to address common issues of concern and proffer workable solutions to identified challenges of the MSMEs as relates to Standards availability, understanding and implementation.
This event is to promote greater competitiveness of their products and as a way to explore advantages in the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA), he said.
The SON Chief Executive said the programme would ensure more powerful and more regular interactive platforms between the organisation and its stakeholders.
Salim also called on all MSME Groups across the country to mobilise their members to participate actively to reap the immense benefits of the interactive sessions.
Available records for MSMEs reveal that they are essential to economic growth as they provide more than 50 per cent of developing nations’ GDP.
For instance, they are a source of both human capital, source of innovation and technological development and raw materials to bigger firms.
They are also the primary source of entrepreneurship and business.
Against this backdrop, the Nigerian’s Vice President, it would be recalled, has been spearheading MSME week, which he said is the current administration’s efforts to support small businesses in the country.
This effort, he said, has led the regime to dedicate a whole week in the recent past to the intensive promotion of MSMEs in Nigeria.
Osinbajo has also been leading MSME clinics across different states, which seeks to sort out firsthand teething problems confronting small scale business development in Nigeria.
Harrison Edeh is a journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, always determined to drive advocacy for good governance through holding public officials and businesses accountable.
