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.