As
part of its efforts to support and promote the growth of the small and
medium scale enterprises (SMEs) as the growth engine of the Nigerian
economy, Skye Bank Plc has
organized a capacity building seminar for entrepreneurs and other small
scale business owners to help them succeed in their businesses.
The
maiden Skye SMEs seminar with the theme “It is Possible”, had in
attendance many operators in the SMEs sector who came to gain fresh and
new insights and trends into
the operations, financing and management of SMEs.
Declaring
the seminar open, the bank’s Executive Director, Corporate and
Investment Banking, Mr. Timothy Oguntayo, who stood in for the Group
Managing Director/CEO, Mr. Kehinde
Durosinmmi-Etti, explained that the bank organized the seminar as part
of its contributions to the development of SMEs in the country.
Oguntayo
said the SMEs sector was an important sector as it provides more
opportunities and employment than the mining, oil and gas sectors.
Indeed, the sector can increase
economic opportunities for those who have not been able to participate
directly in large-scale projects.
“Without
doubt, the SMEs sector has the capacity to drive and encourage
indigenous business and rural economic development such that the whole
country can be transformed
to create productive economic activity for the people through which
they earn their living and contribute to national development”, he said.
Noting
that over 32 million Nigerians were involved the sector, the bank
director said if the sector was properly developed; it has the capacity
to solve the unemployment
problem in the country.
Oguntayo
promised that Skye Bank would continue to play the role of a
facilitator and development partner to help young businesses grow and
realize their full potentials
to the benefit of the nation, the people and the economy.
On
her part, the General Manager, Retail Banking, Skye Bank, Mrs. Arinola
Kola-Daisi, said SMEs constitute an important vehicle for national
development as they have the
capacity to integrate a large segment of the populace in productive
economic activities.
Specifically,
she said the economies of the Asian Tigers or Asian Dragons of the
highly free and developed Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan,
owe their rise to
economic pre-eminence to an extent, to the existence of well-organized
and efficiently run SMEs.
Similarly,
she noted that the Tiger Club Economies of Indonesia, Malaysia, the
Philippines, and Thailand, follow the same export-driven model of
economic development pursued
by the four dominant Asian Tigers where SMEs constitute a sizeable
vehicle of bringing about development and have remained so till this
day.
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