Building Capacity, Market Access Crucial To Driving Small Businesses – SMEDAN

The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), has emphasised the importance of building capacity and market access in driving small businesses in the countryThe director general of SMEDAN, Charles Odii, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria  while speaking on the impact of President Bola Tinubu’s government in the sector.According to Odii, SMEDAN has been at the forefront of several transformative initiatives aimed at boosting the Small and Medium enterprises (SMEs) sector in Nigeria.“Capacity development is the next one, access to training. We are very big on training. We train week in week out, month in month out.“As a matter of fact, members of our team have just finished one major training, which is our National Business Skills Development initiative in Ekiti .“Where we trained our small business owners and youth entrepreneurs on things that we think that they need to thrive.

“After the training, we then give them tools to enable them start and grow sustainable businesses,’’ he said.According to Odii, SMEDAN is also focusing on access to the market to help build our value chain in different industries such as fashion and agriculture.He said SMEDAN was revitalising industrial development centres to enable small businesses access the right machineries needed for their production and growthAccording to the SMEDAN boss, many of these strategies will not be actualised when the environment is not business friendly, so we need to enhance the ease of doing business