SMEs Need More Than Cash

Wednesday, October 4, 2006

There have been extraordinary successes and spectacular failures since the first attempts, but in the process government has learnt valuable lessons.

She noted that while great efforts went into making finance available, not as much effort was invested in providing business support, which is an equally important ingredient for success.

Many SMEs failed because they were suddenly presented with the new challenge of sizeable loans to repay, coupled with limited experience in business. Finance Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila says the government has learnt the very important lesson that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need more than money to succeed.

The government, she said, charted a course to advance entrepreneurship through support to SMEs immediately after independence.

There have been extraordinary successes and spectacular failures since the first attempts, but in the process government has learnt valuable lessons.

She noted that while great efforts went into making finance available, not as much effort was invested in providing business support, which is an equally important ingredient for success.

Many SMEs failed because they were suddenly presented with the new challenge of sizeable loans to repay, coupled with limited experience in business.

“So while improved access to finance remains vitally important to SMEs, and we have to take deliberate steps to redress such imbalances, we also have to address the other shortcomings in our offering to SMEs with equal vigour,” she said.

Kuugongelwa-Amadhila made these remarks at a function held last week to commemorate the first anniversary of a partnership between Bank Windhoek and the Development Bank of Namibia.

Bank Windhoek and the Development Bank teamed up a year ago to make affordable financing available to SMEs.

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Source: New Era (Windhoek) (link opens in a new window)