The 5th edition of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) of Inter-Governmental bodies of the Eight Developing Countries (D-8) being hosted by the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has begun yesterday in Abuja.

The three-day event which was declared open by the Vice President Muhammad Namadi Sambo, who is also the chairman, National Council on Micro Small and Medium Enterprises(NCMSMEs)

represented by the minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga has all the member countries in attendance.

In his opening remark, the director –general of SMEDAN, Bature Masari, said in order to achieve the goal of job creation and sustainable economic livelihood, the contemporary development challenges confronting MSMEs, must be squarely addressed in a structured and efficient manner.

Masari said the nation has been confronted with the challenge of ensuring that her strong macro-economic performances translate to improvements in the living standards of the citizens and growth in the micro, small and medium enterprises subsector of the economy.

To this end , he said the National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP) and the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan (NIIRP) were initiated by the federal government to stir the country’s industrial and entrepreneurship sectors.

Masari informed that NEPEP which focuses on skills acquisition, entrepreneurship training/ business development service and access to finance was also particularly aimed at creating 5million direct and indirect jobs between 2013 and 2015.

According to him, the entrepreneurship/business development component of the initiative was being implemented under the One Local Government One Product(OLOP) platform by SMEDAN, while access to finance component was being handled by the Bank of Industry (BOI) and skills acquisition component by the industrial Training Fund (ITF).

Source: LEADERSHIP(exact quotation)