Date 2015-08-12
Category Gist & Gossip
“According to the 2013 survey conducted by SMEDAN in collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the MSMEs’ contribute largely to Gross Domestic Product (GDP)”
The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) South-East zonal office has trained over 3,000 final year students of the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede.
A statement from the South-east zonal Coordinator of SMEDAN, Levi Anyikwa in Abuja on Tuesday said that the training was designed to help the students start and run their own small businesses.
It said that the training organised by SMEDAN in collaboration with Technological Entrepreneurship Development Centre (TEDC) of the polytechnic was to prepare students for economic self-reliance and become employers of labour upon graduation.
The statement urged the students to put into practice what they had learnt in the course of the training.
Governor Rochas Okorocha (Daily Post)
It stated that the training was targeted at about one million students in the institutions of higher learning in the South-east.
“We have commenced work with the Federal Polytechnic Oko and other institutions in the zone.We are convinced that this programme will add impetus to the efforts of SMEDAN to spread the culture of entrepreneurship to the tertiary institutions and beyond.”
“The training came at a time when the volatility and slump of the prices of crude oil, Nigeria’s cash flow was giving the government and people of Nigeria serious cause for concern,’’ it said.
The statement called on all able-bodied Nigerians to join the campaign for diversification of the nation’s economy.
“The contributions of micro, small and medium enterprises to economic development cannot be over-emphasised. ‘’
According to the 2013 survey conducted by SMEDAN in collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the MSMEs’ contribute largely to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“The result of that survey also indicates that MSMEs employ 59,741,211 people representing 84.02 per cent of the total labour force at SMEDAN.The future of Nigeria’s economy does not depend on crude oil trading but on entrepreneurship development leveraging massive rural resource endowments across the length and breadth of this country,” it said.
The statement quoted the Rector of the Polytechnic, Dr Celestina Njoku, as commending SMEDAN for initiating and successfully executing the programme.
