Small & Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), is seeking a 10-year tax holiday for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country.
The Lagos State Coordinator of the agency, Yinka Fisher, said SMEs remained the agents of transformation in any developing economy, adding that offering them 10-year holiday would help their businesses grow.
Speaking on the sideline of this year’s Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) SME group annual seminar, Fisher said with about 37 million enterprises of which 68,168 are SMEs, government should initiate more entrepreneurship initiatives to keep them alive and grow.
Head, SMEs, Sterling Bank, Mrs. Ezinne Nwaokafor, said the bank is helping businesses to grow by strengthening the expansion of its retail/SME and ‘non-interest-bearing’ lines and business reorganisation. She said the bank now gives collateral free loan to SMEs to key areas, such as those desirous of purchasing equipment to the tune of N25million and N2million for raw materials.
She said SMEs are hampered by the unstructured nature of business where a single person is both the CEO and the front desk officer, stating that it’s almost impossible for banks to give loan to such a business because of the safety of their fund.
Mrs. Nwaokafor said limited documentation, inadequate knowledge of banks requirement in collateral and security, access to market and being technologically up to date with the products they manufacture and how to market them, are some of the challenges besetting SMEs.
Promoter, SME Think Thank and author of a book, ‘How to grow your SME business’, Sola Dawodu advised SMEs to change with change, saying they will be addressed the way they present their products and businesses. He urged them to invest in innovation and competitiveness.