SMEDAN LUNCHES MSMEs Marketplace Database Project in Abuja

The Director General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria SMEDAN Dr. Dikko Umaru Radda has reiterated the Agency’s commitment to redesign and restructure the way and manner MSMEs data are generated and used in Nigeria with the adoption of a Comprehensive MSMEs Marketplace Database initiative.

In a welcome remark at the opening of a stakeholders Forum on the Comprehensive MSMEs Marketplace Database Project in Abuja today  24/4/2019.  Dr Radda who was represented by Mr. Wale Fasanya, Director Planning Research, Monitoring and Evaluation noted that the initiative seeks to generate a more reliable and better ‘structured’ database for better planning and more informed decision making by relevant stakeholders within the SME Ecosystem as well as develop a standardized data capturing format or framework that will guide all SMEs-related surveys or census.

Dr. Radda said the initiative would also  enable demand-driven relationships and match-making between SMEs and Large Enterprises (LEs) and enable better and more specific MSMEs listing by sector, location, input requirements, products and services, output, financing gaps and so on.

Other deliverables of this initiative according to the Director General will be to fast-track market linkages and cooperation amongst MSMEs, Large Enterprises, investors (both public and private entities) and ensure better enterprise and stakeholders cooperation, enhance regulatory oversight as congruent with the vision of the Agency, which is to establish a structured and efficient MSME sub-sector that will encourage and enhance sustainable economic development in Nigeria.

Dr. Radda further said the exercise will help the agency to establish standard benchmarks that would facilitate the profiling and mainstreaming of Nigerian SMEs into the Global SME Community

“In line with this the Agency has engaged an international consulting firm Duns and Bradstreet Nigeria Limited to carry out this study in four (4) major commercial States i.e. Lagos, Ogun, Kano and Abia.”

Dr. Radda added that the choice of these States was based on the fact that they are areas of very high socio-economic activities and that the findings in these states would enable the agency to upscale the survey to other states in the next phase of the project. On the major deliverables of project, Dr. Radda said, is the production of a comprehensive need-based concept document or blueprint for carrying out the MSMEs National Database exercise in conjunction with SMEDAN and the development of field methods/suitable instruments and tools with which to capture requisite information from target MSMEs