Tujoromajo Kasuto
The Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board, NIPDB Manager for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Development, Innovation and Acceleration Dino Ballotti said they are building an online portal for SMEs that will provide information about these businesses at the click of a button.
He says this will be sector, region, town, youth specific and is still in the works, and will assist in exposing people of various small businesses that are operating within a certain geographical location and the services they offer.
Meanwhile, Namibia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NCCI) is also facilitating a similar initiative called the MSME Toolkit, which is an online portal intended to help entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to learn and implement sustainable business management practices and increase their productivity, efficiency, and capacity, as well as improve their access to finance and new markets.
The toolkit consists of a large body of globally relevant free content for SMEs provided by content partners, and includes business forms, tools, how-to-articles, business software and advice about starting and growing a business. The areas covered include accounting, finance, human resources, international business, legal, insurance, marketing, sales, operations and technology.
Ballotti also shared various initiatives that are primarily focused on SMEs such as the Know2Grow (K2G) initiative that focuses on information dissemination through all 14 regions, targeting MSME business owners, who are looking to access finance and markets.
It targets 3000 MSMEs and he said it has so far reached 1000 only.
Whilst the WMSMEs Market Access Working Group initiative aims to explore various ways in which to facilitate a lucrative market space that is accessible to all Namibian MSMEs whose businesses, products and services meet the required national and internal standards of their respective industries.
Another one is the K2G NextGen Trade Fair, a Market Access and Capacity Building Platform Credit Guarantee Scheme.
He says the division is working closely with the Development Bank of Namibia to ensure that the target audience of MSMEs access government funding facilities.
Additionally, he said that there are collaborations in place with partners to ensure that a Namibian MSME fund is established, to cater for blended financing for these outfits.
