One of the major challenges that has limited the access of small and medium-sized enterprises to credit facilities is their inability to present bankable proposals to financial institutions. Having recognised this, the Enterprise Development Centre of the Pan Atlantic University, Lagos in collaboration with the Bank of Industry organised a capacity building programme in Lagos for owners of small businesses with the theme, ”Developing Small Growing Businesses”.
The programme which had in attendance business executives and entrepreneurs was aimed at identifying funding constraints and how they could be over come.
While addressing participants, the Managing Director and CEO of BOI, Ms. Evelyn Oputu, regretted the difficulties most SMEs face in their quest to secure funding for their businesses. She attributed these mainly to the inability of many entrepreneurs to supply the information required by banks to process their loan applications. Speaking in the same vein, the former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Ms Robin Sanders urged entrepreneurs to pay attention to details and gather enough information about funding agencies they intended to approach for support to enable them to answer questions that might arise and to produce needed documents.
In conclusion, Ms Oputu gave assurance that BOI would continue to support the SME sector, which, she stressed, was the engine of growth of most economies as the real sector had the potential of generating massive employment. This she explained was why BOI under its paradigm shift that was launched in 2006 dedicated 85% of its resources to funding of the SME sector.