The Managing Director of Ore Industrial Park (OIP), Dr Femi Akinkuebi, on Thursday, stressed the need for aggressive drive and support for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector in the country, saying SMEs potentially constitute the most dynamic firms in emerging economies.
Akinkuebi who made this known during a media chat with newsmen at the Ore Industrial Park said the role SMEs plays in the development of any country cannot be underestimated.
He explained that SMEs outnumber large companies by a wide margin and also employ many more people which made SMEs the greatest support for the economy.
He said that, in a developing country like Nigeria, SMES have a larger share than in developed countries
He said: “For example, Australian SMEs makeup 98 percent of all Australian businesses, produce one-third of the total GDP and employ 4.7 million people. In Tunisia, the self-employed workers’ alone account for about 28 percent of the total non-farm employment and firms with fewer than 100 employees account for about 62 percent of total employment.”
The MD added that the growing economic challenges in the nation which have also led to an increased rate of unemployment can be addressed through the setting up of more small and medium scale enterprise across the 36 states of the federation.
He said both the small and medium scale enterprise has the ability to employ between 11-100 and 101 to 300 workers respectively if well encouraged to thrive in Nigeria.
According to him, SMEs are responsible for driving innovation and competition in many economic sectors. They create more new jobs than large firms, eradicate poverty, reduce social tension, solve inequality and ensure maximum use of resources.
He added that in recent years, SMEs have greatly contributed to Nigerian development in terms of employment, growth and development, diversification of products and marketing of goods and services.
In his words, “the Nigerian Government is turning to small and medium scale industries and entrepreneurs as a means of developing the economy and solving unemployment problems. Reports show that a great percentage of all registered companies in Nigeria are constituted by small scale industries and they have been in existence for a long time.”
He said the Akeredolu led administration in Ondo State has intensified on the creation of more SME in the state through the Ore Industrial Park
According to him, “The roles played by SMEs in a growing economy cannot be emphasized and this made the Ondo state government encourage them by providing a conducive environment as Ore Industrial Park for their products where there’s uninterrupted power supply, water, gas, new innovation to meet up other country’s SME standards and with clustered arrangement with the target market to make work easier for SMEs. Also, trainings are in place to encourage youths.”
He enjoined the state governments across the federation to leverage on the economic opportunities provided by SMES to economically advance the nation while also urging members of the public as well as investors to invest more in SMES and that the Ore Industrial Park will afford them the much-needed incentives to start and thrive
The Ore Industrial Park was built as a public-private partnership (PPP) project, established on a massive 1000 hectares of eco-friendly, economic and industrial zoned land.
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