Olusegun Aganga, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, said Nigeria benefited $20 billion of Foreign Direct Investment in the last three years.
This made Nigeria Africa’s top destination for investment, Aganga added.
Aganga said this at the public presentation of the new national policy on MSMEs in Abuja on Thursday.
“With a growing population of approximately 170 million people and an abundance of natural resources and arable land, Nigeria has also become the perfect hub for investments,” he said.
According to him, Nigeria is now the largest economy in Africa with a re-based GDP of $510 billion.
“Over the course of this administration, the Nigerian economy has experienced unprecedented levels of growth,” he said.
Aganga said the increasing FDI has led to increasing opportunities for local MSMEs as these businesses were critical components of the value chain for many larger corporate.
He said: “Today marks yet another milestone in re-shaping the MSME sub-sector in Nigeria.
“We are putting in place the necessary mechanisms to support MSMEs and to ensure their continued growth and contribution to Nigeria’s economy.”
Aganga said the World Bank stated that fostering high growth entrepreneurship and innovative activity were paramount in achieving high productivity as a country and in creating jobs.
He said: “It is therefore no coincidence that there has been an increasing global focus on MSME development and on creating the enabling environment for these businesses to thrive.
“The reason for this is simple: not only do MSMEs contribute significantly to the GDP of many countries, but they are also economic drivers and job creators.
“We have seen countries such as India and Brazil shift their poverty line through MSME development policy measures.”
Aganga said he was convinced that Nigeria could achieve the same milestones if it continued on the current path and ensured the strategies in the revised policy were implemented.
Earlier, Alhaji Bature Masari, the Director-General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, said the agency created over 340,560 new jobs through the NEDEP platform.
Masari said: “The agency has formed and registered over 55,000 cooperative societies along value chain of identified products.
“The cooperative societies are being assisted to develop workable business plans for onward transmission to banks for access to finance.”
Masari said MSMEs were considered world over as engines of economic growth and indeed incontrovertible contributors to employment, wealth generation and poverty alleviation.
He said with the review of the policy, MSMEs sub-sector in Nigeria had been given a further impetus to drive the national economy towards job, wealth creation and poverty alleviation.
“I will request for the support and cooperation of all stakeholders to achieve the MSMEs sub-sector in Nigeria,” he said.
NAN.
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