Entrepreneurs exposed to opportunities at SME conference
Young entrepreneurs have been exposed to opportunities at the just concluded 3-day SME conference held at the Sheraton Hotels, Abuja.
The programme tagged ‘Accessing Hidden Opportunities and Linkages in Value Chain for Entrepreneurial Development’, was organised by the Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce, Kaduna State (NACC) and the Embassy of the United States of America, Economic Affairs Section, Nigeria.
One of the participants and MD Afro Foods and Spices, Alhaji Kabir Bawa, explains some of the benefits he has gained through the event saying, “The first opportunity I got is the exposure. They exposed me to lots of customers; both in Nigeria and abroad. The patronage has been so overwhelming. We have about 10 food products of international quality.
“The challenge we are having is meeting demands. The market is there, Nigerians want better and quality products; the capacity to meet the demand is our challenge now. There is high demand for Nigerian product especially at home and that is what we are profiting from now.
“Nigerians are appreciating Nigerian products more and whatever they want to buy, they ask whether it’s Nigerian or foreign,” Bawa said.
The National President of the NACC, Chief Olabintan A.F, says the conference which is in its third year is an avenue to guide SMEs to more opportunities.
“We have been doing this and this is the third year to show noble companies and young businesses, what is possible that they don’t know. Sources of getting finance, sources of support, sources of being able to upscale quality, packaging and how to find market in Nigeria and international market,” he said
The President/CEO of US African Development Foundation and keynote speaker at the event, Mr C.D. Glin, said Nigeria is an investment destination and that the foundation has been investing in young entrepreneurs in the country in the past 15 years.
“The US African Development Foundation invests directly into agricultural cooperatives, offgrade energy entrepreneurs and more. We provide seed capital, technical assistance to African and Nigerian entrepreneurs.
“We have been working in Nigeria for more than 15 years. This year we are investing in 25 agricultural cooperatives and producer groups as well as African energy entrepreneurs. We have four million dollars invested into those entrepreneurs and agricultural cooperatives,” he said.
Glin said Nigerians they have empowered have been fantastic and have been productive not only in increasing income, but providing jobs and creating local economic opportunities in their environments.
“What I would like to see in the future is more grassroots enterprises being able to come up and community organisations establishing more enterprises to bring about poverty alleviation.
“We have an application process were applicants can go to usadf.go and apply. We only fund African owned and African managed organisations primarily in the agriculture space,” Glin said.
The chairman of the Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce, Kaduna State, Matthew Obogbaimhe, said the chamber hopes to bring about good processes especially in the agricultural value chain.
“For instance, we are shipping out ginger in the raw state, without adding value in what we are shipping. So the idea is, to create opportunities for entrepreneurs in these sectors to find ways of adding value to things they are doing so they can get more money,” he said.
We are creating that visibility for Nigerian entrepreneurs to see that they have the ability, the strength and capacity to avail themselves with things we are doing; the new ways of adding value in what they are doing. That way they can enhance their businesses, create more jobs and the country does better as more entrepreneurs thrive,” Obogbaimhe said.