Business Expert and Managing Director of Ore Industrial Park, Dr. Femi Akinkuebi has reiterated the drive of the Ondo State Government through the Ore Industrial Park [OIP] to consciously lead an aggressive drive to ensuring the creation of more small and medium enterprises in Nigeria.
He revealed this during a media chat with newsmen at the Ore Industrial Park, on the 3rd of December, 2021.
According to him, he said the roles of small and medium enterprises played in the development of any country is very important.
He also explained that SMEs outnumber large companies by a wide margin and also employ many more people
In his words, “For example, Australian SMEs make up 98% of all Australian businesses, produce one-third of the total GDP and employ 4.7 million people. In Tunisia, the self-employed workers alone account for about 28% of the total non-farm employment and firms with fewer than 100 employees account for about 62% of total employment.
Akinkuebi futher analysed that, in a developing country like Nigeria, SMES have a larger share than in developed countries.
The MD added that the growing economic challenges in the nation which has also led to an increased rate of un-employment can be addressed through the setting up of more small and medium scale enterprise across the 36 states of the federation.
He also said that both the small and medium scale enterprise has the ability to employ 11-100 and 1010 to 300 workers respectively if well encouraged to thrive in Nigeria.
According to him, SMEs are responsible for driving innovation and competition in many economic sectors. They create more new jobs than large firms, eradicate poverty, reduce social tension, solve inequality and ensures maximum use of resources.
He added that in recent years, SMEs have greatly contributed to the Nigerian development in terms of employment, growth and development, diversification of products and marketing of goods and services.
In his words, “the Nigerian Government is turning to small and medium scale industries and entrepreneurs as a means of developing the economy and solving unemployment problems. Reports shows that a great percentage of all registered companies in Nigeria are constituted by small scale industries and they have been in existence for a long time.”
While addressing how the Akeredolu led administration in Ondo State has intensified on the creation of more SME in the state through the Ore Industrial Park, According to him, “The roles played by SMEs in a growing economy cannot be emphasized and this made the Ondo State Government to encourage them by providing a conducive environment as Ore Industrial Park for their production where there's uninterrupted power supply, water, gas, new innovation (such as equipment, facilities) to meet up other country's SME standards and with clustered arrangement with target market to make work easier for SMEs. Also trainings are in place to encourage youths.”
He enjoined the State Governments across the federation to leverage on the economic opportunities provided by SMES to economically advance the nation while also urging members of the public as well as investors to invest more in SMES and that the Ore Industrial Park will afford them the much needed incentives to start and thrive
The Ore Industrial Park was built as a public-private partnership [PPP] project, established on a massive 1000 hectares of eco-friendly, economic and industrial zoned land.
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