Nineteen state governments have signed a
Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) for the take off of the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) programme, Director General of the agency, Alhaji Bature Umar Masari, has said.

Masari, who made the disclosure yesterday in
Katsina, said the 19 states have also signed MoU with Bank of Industry (BOI) for the creation of matching funds for the commencement of the programme.

He said while the bank will ensure access to vocational skills and finance for benefiting cooperative groups, the Industrial Training Funds (ITF) on the other hand, was involved in the programme to provide vocational and technical training to the beneficiaries.

Masari said the funds would be disbursed among the micro small and medium enterprises at a very low interest rate, adding that the objective of the programme was to create job opportunities to unemployed youths in the benefiting states.

The Director General said MSMEs was meant for industrialization of the country, job and wealth creation as well as poverty alleviation.
“A survey of MSMEs in Nigeria conducted by
SMEDAN and National Bureau of Statistics has
revealed that only about 17.2 million MSMEs exist in the country providing employment to some 32 million people which is a far cry, considering our population,” he said.

He pointed out that the statistics necessitated the formation of the new national policy on MSMEs and that he was in Katsina to avail the
government of job opportunities available under the programme.
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