Nigerian Government approves reviewed MSMEs Policy

The Nigerian Government has approved a revised national policy on Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) for 2021-2025.

The Director General, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency (SMEDAN), Dikko Radda  made the announcement during a news briefing in Abuja.

According to him, before now there was no strategic policy document to guide the development of MSMEs prior to the establishment of the agency in 2003.

The agency ensured that the first official national policy on MSMEs was approved in 2007 with a provision for a four-year review.

He added that in addition to the provision for the timed review of the national policy, there were some other key regional, national and global changes that underscored the review of the policy like the macroeconomic policy thrust embedded in the medium term expenditure framework and fiscal strategy  2019-2021.

“Again there are major positive changes in the reviewed policy  like the change in the departure from the use of assets to turnover in classifying MSMEs, with several reasons to justify this, again inflation and naira depreciation have eroded the asset levels set in 2007 when the first national policy was approved,” Radda said.

The DG said the reviewed national policy on MSMEs has split the micro enterprises sub-sector into two sub-groups like Nano/Homestead and Micro Enterprises.

The need for the split he said is based on certain consideration like in 2013, 83.2 percent of micro enterprise had an initial set up capital of N100,000 or less. To improve policy targeting, it is important to separate these tiny enterprises from their slightly more formal counterparts.