FG through BOA collaborate with international partners, plan $1bn loan support for MSMEs

The Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment, through the Bank of Industry, has concluded a $1bn syndicated long term loan in conjunction with international partners to support Micro, Small, and Medium Scale Enterprises in the country.

These were disclosed to newsmen in Abuja on Monday, March, 23, in a statement issued by the minister’s media aide, Ifedayo Sayo at the Quantum Mechanics Limited MSME Survival Fund Capacity Building Programme.

According to the statement, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo, said the loan was aimed at improving the bank’s capacity to support MSMEs across key sectors of the economy with affordable loans of medium to long-term tenor, alongside moratorium benefits.

The Minister also said there was an ongoing discussion with Dunn & Bradstreet, a business service company to establish a Small and Medium Enterprises risk rating agency. Adding that, the SME Rating Agency of Nigeria is to provide an empirical basis towards analyzing the modalities of SMEs to access credit.

The Minister said, “I will like to reiterate that our ministry fully supports MSMEs, as demonstrated by our MSME Survival Fund Initiative, which was launched in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Federal Government as part of the Nigerian Economic Sustainability Plan.”

While emaciating, the Minister also revealed how the Nigerian Export Promotion Council had launched the Export Expansion Facility under NESP, to support the resilience of new and existing MSMEs in responding to the shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Minister, further said that the National MSMEs Clinics will support the growth of small businesses through the provision of infrastructure while maintaining that the survival fund was estimated to save at least 1.3 million jobs across the country.

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