FG to conduct 4th MSMEs survey

13 Aug FG to conduct 4th MSMEs survey

The Federal Government is set to begin the fourth round of the Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) survey.

The disclosure was made on Thursday in Abuja at a news conference jointly addressed by the office of the Statistician-General of the Federation and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN).

Adeyemi Adeniran, Director, Real Sector and Household Statistics Department at the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, represented Mr Yemi Kale, Statistician-General of the Federation, at the news conference.

Adeniran said that the survey would begin on Monday with a train-the-trainers workshop, while field work would start on Aug. 21.

He said that the survey which would be carried out in the 36 states and the FCT would cover 2019 and 2020.

He added that three surveys had been successfully carried out in 2010, 2013 and 2017.

Adeniran said that in the fourth round, the concept of Nano enterprises, a concept considered as micro enterprises, would be introduced.

“The new sub-division (Nano) refers to those enterprises that have only one or two persons engaged in their operations, while the micro enterprises are those enterprises with three to nine persons engaged in their operations.

“On this note, the survey will henceforth be called NMSMEs survey. In addition, a new module was introduced into the survey, which is the impact of COVID-19 on business operations.

“It seeks to identify how enterprises coped during the pandemic period and what areas of support and intervention they will require from government at this post-COVID lockdown period’’ he said.

On the objectives of the survey, Adeniran said that they would help to establish a credible and reliable database for the MSMEs.

He said that they would also contribute to job and wealth creation over a three-year period.

On the impact of past exercises, Adeniran said they allowed government to look inward into those sectors within the MSMEs that were making impact on the GDP to strengthen them.

He added that they looked at those that were not making much contribution to the GDP to bring them up to speed so that holistically, the improvement in all sectors within the MSMEs would lead to overall improvement in growth.

“We also know that the MSMEs sub-sector of our economy employs a huge number of persons; they engage a lot of workers in their daily activities.

“To this end, they are able to cushion the effects of unemployment that Nigeria is witnessing.

“If not for the MSMEs that are still serving the communities, the labour force population and the unemployment we have in the country will be more than what we are experiencing now,’’ Adeniran added.