THE federal government has announced the release of about N750 billion naira for onward lending to operators of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country.
Olusegun Aganga, minister of finance, who dropped the hint in Abuja, said the fund would be disbursed through the Bank of Industry which is expected to effectively midwife the programme.
Aganga said the decision to introduce the programme was in view of the strong believe by government that the SME sector possessed the potential to become a major contributor to the growth of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
He said government was so sure of the success of the programme in view of the resilience and creativity of Nigerians to harness the spirit of innovation and productivity in order to create jobs, raise incomes and create broad-based and sustainable economic growth.
The minister further stated that the move to inject the huge sum into developing the SME sector of the economy was part of the fulfilment of government’s key economic policies of prioritizing the refocusing of the economy. He disclosed that plans were also on top gear to encourage the flow of capital towards the real and productive sectors of the economy.
Aganga said top on government’s agenda was to ensure a viable sector for SMEs and Small Growing Businesses (SGBs). This, he said, was seriously taken into consideration by the National Economic Management Team (NEMT) who has acknowledged the importance of SMEs and SGBs as the best positioned institutions for job creation and economic growth around the world including Nigeria.
The minister disclosed that government had identified the above mentioned institutions and was ready to support citizens to leverage their entrepreneurial strengths to become successful. To this end, he said government had identified some of the bottlenecks to the growth of these sectors which includes lack of business training and capacity and as a result, had entered into a partnership with the Pan African University which would coordinate training for beneficiary of the funds.
To fast track the implementation of the initiative, which is also being supported by Dangote Group and TY Danjuma Foundation, Aganga disclosed that some  of the current Industrial Development Centres (all 23 IDCs) under the management of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (Smedan) are being considered as launch pads for immediate take off of the industrial clusters park.
He added that in order to ensure sustainability and continuity of momentum on the programme, government would in the shortest possible time activate a governing body of relevant stakeholders that would oversee the execution of an effective strategy that would ensure the viability the initiative.