Yemisi Izuora
The Bank of Industry (BoI), is planning to assist Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with N376 billion before the end of 2019.
The Acting Managing Director, Waheed Olagunju, spoke in Makurdi while presenting a paper entitled; “Target Financing for SMEs’’ at a management retreat for officers of the ministry and its parastatal agencies.
The conference had as its theme, “Implementing the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) through Industry, Trade and Investment’’.
According to Olagunju, disbursement to SMEs increased from a record of N5.64 billion in 2015 to N8.02 billion as at end of 2016, while for 2019 we are targeting N376 billion.
He said the bank had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Afterschool Graduate Development Centre.
The scheme he said would provide between N200, 000 to N500, 000 to empower one million youths over the next five years.
Olagunju said the bank had also lent N5 billion micro-finance banks for financing of micro-loans.
“About N4.5 billion has been disbursed to micro-finance banks and over 15,000 microenterprises have benefitted from this scheme,’’ he said.
Olagunju said 44 key business clusters had been identified nationwide with products developed, taking into account peculiarities as SMEs Credit group was set up to ensure effective turnaround time in reviewing credit.
He said the bank had also disbursed N1.48 billion to market associations and co-operatives, as well as developed strategic alliances with MFBs and Mobile Money operators to facilitate effective disbursement.
According to Olagunju, the bank has identified a number of key sources toward shoring-up its lending capacity.