The President of the Nigeria Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), Dr. Ike Abugu, said attention must be focused on small businesses to achieve the double digit growth needed to actualize Vision 20 – 2020.
Abugu, who spoke at the NASME patrons and trustees’ dinner held in Lagos, said what is required of government is to ensure that the natural entrepreneurial talents of the citizenry and harnessed.
He listed other factors as, government facilitating access to cheap, long-term funding for genuine enterprises, bringing back the Small and Medium Enterprises Equity Investment Scheme (SMEEIS), introducing tax holidays for start ups for the first five years and charging single digit tax thereafter,; others are introducing mandatory patronage of product of Nigerian SMEs (at least 25 per cent of government procurement must be from Nigeria SMEs), overhauling the educational system, especially science, technical and vocational education and fixing our infrastructure, especially electric power, rail roads and water.
Continuing, he said that, “it is in the interest of the government that viable business associations operate in the country as it will help organize the numerous entities operating in various industries and goes further to articulate their needs and demands for transmission to government.”