Registration for N75bn MSME credit application opens Monday

Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Ms Mariam Katagum, said on Saturday that registration for government’s N75 billion Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Survival Fund and Guaranteed Off-take programmes would tee off on Monday, September 21, 2020

Both components of the Nigerian government’s N2.3 trillion Economic Sustainability Plan, the initiatives have in mind 1.7 million entities and persons all over Nigeria and have a starting tenor of three months.

The ambition of the funding lies in rejuvenating an economy hobbled by the coronavirus outbreak by means of creating job security buffers and generating new jobs, the minister said in a statement issued in Abuja by the Assistant Director of Information, Federal Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment.

It would offer special consideration of 45 per cent of the financing to businesses belonging to women at the same time 5 per cent preference to people of special needs, Katagum added.

“Most of them have greatly been negatively impacted due to the economic downturn arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The schemes are emerging at a moment when MSMEs, which account for 84 per cent of Nigeria’s labour force, are gasping for survival and balance after the pandemic shut down activities and disrupted supply chains for months in Africa’s biggest economy.