The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has announced that it registered three million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) under its mass registration Programme.
This was disclosed by its Director-General, Dr. Dikko Radda, at the 27th regular valedictory meeting of the governing board of the agency.
SMEDAN stated that the scheme is meant to ensure more Nigerian companies move from the informal to the formal sector and boost the formal development of the economy.
SMEDAN boss revealed that one of the initial goals of its board is the creation of the mass registration exercise and the MSME marketplace database, and it has done significantly well.
“On that, we were able to register MSMEs with the SMEDAN unique identification number.
“The registration is seamless that you can just go into the website www.smedanregister.com and you will be able to register, get your unique identification number and print your certificate.
“That has been a very good effort and up-till-date we were able to register over three million MSMEs that have full details of their location, the kind of products and services that they provide and their contacts,” he said.
He also urged that if any Nigerian needs any of their products or services or raw materials, they can contact them directly by linking up to those MSMEs, and this has been a very wonderful exercise.
Other achievements of SMEDAN, he says, include creating increased employment opportunities for the youths, improving MSME operators’ livelihood, increase in funding for the agency, National Business Development Initiative, One Local Government, One Product (OLOP), Talent Hunt and Mind Shift.
“One of the core problems that had hitherto confronted the development of the sub-sector is the lack of accurate, useable and up-to-date data on MSMEs in Nigeria, which could be helpful for both local and international stakeholders,” he said, citing that the mass registration programme would develop a database that would facilitate registration of both formal and informal enterprises in Nigeria.
Recall that, last year, SMEDAN boss revealed that 59 million Nigerians are currently employed by 41 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
