The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has launched the SMEDAN Select 2022 initiative in a bid to provide larger markets for the products of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the country.
The SMEDAN Select 2022 initiative has created a global market access platform for products of Nigerian origin produced by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
The Director General, SMEDAN, Olawale Fasanya, speaking at the launch of the initiative in Lagos said the move was to showcase the peculiarity of Made-in-Nigeria products in the nation.
He said: “It is in the bid to further support MSMEs the agency developed the SMEDAN Select programme.
“The initiative is geared towards creating a new SMEDAN brand from standard products from among the best of Made-in-Nigeria products in the food, fashion, beauty and agro/agro-allied sectors,” Fasanya who was represented by Mazi Ewas, director of EDandP at SMEDAN said.
Approximately 300 products, he claimed, had been sought for and chosen nationwide by the agency for exhibition and promotion on its website and social media pages.
The director-general said that the businesses’ hardcopy catalogs will be delivered to embassies, other MDAs, and department stores throughout key cities in Nigeria to increase the patronage of the various products.
He claims that the program’s emphasis is on MSMEs whose products are already recipients of the organization’s One Local Government, One Product (OLOP) programs.
“This ambitious effort of the agency is based on the successful implementation of the pilot phase of the OLOP programme in Katsina, Kaduna, FCT, Osun and Anambra States,” he said.
“The intervention activities under OLOP, among others, include access to workspace, equipment support, access to working capital, and capacity building.”
He added that the objectives of the initiative are to increase access to local, regional and global markets for MSMEs, support market expansion for them, create brand names for made-in-Nigeria products, and drive awareness of standard made-in-Nigeria products.
According to Aisha Abubakar, Minister of State for the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment, who also spoke in the event, expressed that poor market access is a significant issue for small businesses in the nation.
According to Abubakar, who was represented by Adewale Bakare, director of the industrial corporation at the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment, barriers to entry, which are obstacles that make it difficult to enter a particular market, are a major hindrance to market access. He also added that it is worse if the intended market is regulated.
She thanked SMEDAN for helping MSMEs solve the problem and said that the government will work with the organization to provide whatever necessary support to make sure the effort was successful.
