The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) has revealed that there are 41.5 million micro-businesses in Nigeria. It also added that micro-businesses employ around 56 million citizens across all sectors of the economy, thereby contributing around 49.8% to the nation’s GDP.
The statistics were made public today by Mr. Monday Ewans, the Director, Development and Promotion, SMEDAN, at the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC), an arm of the Pan Atlantic University, during a media session to announce the forthcoming Enterprise Walk and the Global Entrepreneurship Week starting next week.
According to Mr. Ewans, “SMEDAN, as a government agency has been working tirelessly to get accurate data that will truly represent the entrepreneurs ecosystem in Nigeria”.
“Therefore the agency entered into partnership with the Enterprise Development Centre, and opened an enterprise hub at Yabatech to ensure the entrepreneurship base is fully catered to”, he added.
He further explained that “as at the beginning of the year, there are about 41.5 million micro-businesses in the country; providing jobs for about 56 million Nigerians, contributing 49.8% of the GDP”.
SMEDAN is an agency saddled with the responsibility of supporting small businesses in Nigeria. Therefore, to carryout its job, it needed to ascertain the number of small businesses operating within the country, and what their challenges are.
