Nigeria embarks on 4th MSMEs survey

The Federal Government is set to begin the fourth round of the Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) survey, Mr Yemi Kale, the Statistician-General of the Federation, said on Thursday in Abuja.
He made the explanation at a joint news conference with Mr Dikko Radda, the Director-General, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN).
Kale was represented by Mr Adeyemi Adeniran, the Director, Real Sector and Household Statistics Department, NBS.
He said that the survey would begin on Monday with a train the trainers’ workshop, while field work would start on Aug. 21.
Kale said that the survey which would be carried out in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) would cover 2019 and 2020.
He added that three surveys had been successfully carried out in 2010, 2013 and 2017 respectively.
Kale said that in the fourth round, the concept of Nano enterprises, a concept considered as micro enterprises would be introduced.
He said, “The new sub-division (Nano) refers to those enterprises that have only one or two persons engaged in its operations while the micro enterprises are those enterprises with three to nine persons engaged in its 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 the enterprises coped during the pandemic period and what areas of support and intervention they will require from government at this post-COVID lockdown period.’’
On the objectives of the survey, he said that they would help to establish a credible and reliable database for the MSMEs sub-sector in Nigeria.
He said that they would also contribute to job and wealth creation over a three year interval period.
Kale added that they would help to assess the contributions of the MSMEs sub-sector to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and identify the number of NMSMEs owned on gender basis.
“The survey would also identify the skills gap in the sector, ascertain top priority areas that need government interventions and assistance and identify possible financing windows to raise low cost financing.’’
On the impact of past exercises, Kale 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 person; 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 community, the labour force population and the unemployment we have in the country will be more than what we are experiencing now,’’ he said.
In his contribution, Radda said that MSMEs were important to the sustainable growth of the national economy as the last survey indicated that the sub-sector contributed 49.78 per cent of the nation’s GDP.
According to him, they also accounted for over 76 per cent of total employment and contributed 7.64 per cent to total export.
Radda said that such surveys gave the agency the leverage to come up with programmes that would have impact on the sub-sector.
He, however, said that as important as the sub-sector was, it was still faced with challenges that impeded its start, growth and sustainability.
“One of the key challenges that have limited the development and growth in the sub-sector is the absence of up-to-date and usable data of MSMEs.
“Unfortunately, the inclusive, effective and sustainable development of the sub-sector is largely dependent on the availability of usable data.
“The exercise will necessitate visits to MSMEs across the country and we solicit the cooperation of all actors in the MSMES space as our enumerators will soon come to administer the questionnaires.’’