The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Heritage Bank Plc, Mr Ifie Sekibo, has called for increased support for micro, small and medium scale enterprises in order to achieve the country’s quest for double digit economic growth.
Sekibo, who noted the improvement in the country’s Gross Domestic Product growth rate to 2.27 per cent in 2019 from 1.91 per cent in 2018, said that increasing support to MSMEs, given their dominant role in the economy, would help to leapfrog Nigeria to double digit GDP growth rate.
In a statement, while highlighting the importance of MSMEs contributions to the nation’s economy, he said, “Nigeria has 41.5 million MSMEs which contributed about 48 per cent of the GDP in the last five years.
“With a total number of about 17.4 million, MSMEs account for about 50 per cent of industrial jobs and nearly 90 per cent of the manufacturing sector, in terms of number of enterprises in the country.”
According to him, there were lots of opportunities for the country in MSMEs and Heritage Bank was taking the lead through various initiatives such as its youth entrepreneurship development programme which was aimed at increasing the contributions of the MSME segment to the economy.
Sekibo said for Nigeria to achieve its aim as giant of Africa or as an economy to be reckoned with in the world, a lot of mileage needed to be covered in the SMEs subsector.
He stated, “The contribution of the MSMEs to the Nigerian economy cannot be undermined. So if the MSMEs are supported financially and they take their rightful place in the economy of Nigeria, it will create a lot of middle class income earners which is very vital to the economy of any nation.
He added that, “Heritage Bank is collaborating with relevant operators of MSMEs to help them grow into big and sustainable businesses because we believe some of these businesses are critical to the survival of the nation.”