By Emeka MAMAH
The Director-General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Alhaji Mohammed Nadada Umar, has said that Nigeria may not attain her Vision 20_2020 programme without the promotion and development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). SMEDAN which was established in 2003 was conceived as “One Stop Shop” to promote the development of the MSME sector of the economy.

Umar position was contained in a paper he presented in Kaduna yesterday at the 2010 edition of the Northern States SME Summit in the state. Describing small and medium enterprises as the engine growth of any viable economy, the Director General  noted that SMEs should to provide the bulk of employment which ranges between 67 and 97 per cent of all available jobs in the country.

“This is so because of a number of factors amongst which include the limited capital required to start, relatively low labour utilization and limited workspace requirement.

The Agency, in collaboration with other stakeholders, is firming up strategies to provide single digit financing windows to MSMEs and it is also in the process of converting the 22 existing Industrial Development Centres (IDCs) to enterprise clusters.

This is meant to effectively tackle the challenge of access to workspace, through the provision of fully serviced, functional and affordable workspace,” he said.

He however stressed that to achieve the objectives, there was the need for the introduction of entrepreneurship education in the country’s school curricula as it will serve as catalyst for the revitalization of enterprise culture of the people.

According to him, “adequate and adaptive entrepreneurship education that is well rooted will bring about knowledge that is required in today’s globalized, dynamic and information-driven world.”