Business

Hope Rises As FCMB Support 15,000 Women With SME’s

Published

4 years ago

January 25, 2021

Joel Ajayi

Hope rises for 15,000 Small and Medium Enterprises( SMEs) as first City Monument Bank has continued its aggressive drive and support for the economy sector in the country.

It will be recalled that,bank, which was recently voted as the Best SME Bank in Africa, thereby consolidating its position as the dominant financial institution in the segment, has made more funds available to women entrepreneurs through her “SheVenture” initiative.

The SheVentures initiative offers enhanced support to women-owned SMEs and starts-ups through access to finance, training and mentoring with the unique benefit of zero-interest-rate for an initial period of three months.

Over 15,000 women-owned SMEs have so far benefitted from this, in terms of funding and training, in the last 18 months.

In recognition of her great contributions to the growth of the small and medium enterprise sector, FCMB was recently voted as the Best SME Bank in Africa at the Asian Banker Middle East and Africa Regional Awards in November 2020.

It was another confirmation of the bank’s unequalled commitment and outstanding performance in offering exceptional services, including funding, capacity building and other value-added supports, to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises.

Share on Facebook

Business

Minister of State For Industry Charges NEPZA on Impactful Performance

Published

3 days ago

December 19, 2024

The Gleamer

Throws Support Behind Current Management

Honourable Minister of State For Industry, Senator John Owan Enoh today Thursday the 19th of December, identified the importance of enhanced performance with direct impact on the lives of the Nigerian people as critical to the implementation of the core mandate of agencies within the Industrial sector of the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment.

Speaking when the top management of NEPZA led by the Managing Director/CEO, Dr. Olufemi Ogunyemi paid him a visit in his office to deliver a progress report on the activities of the authority, the Minister of State for Industry, charged the management of NEPZA to pay greater attention on delivering enhanced performance with focus on industrial matters that will impact the Nigerian people in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of the present administration. While expressing his readiness to work closely with the leadership of the authority to achieve this objective, he called for continued engagement with the management of NEPZA to achieve this shared objective.

Presenting his progress report to the Honourable Minister of State, Dr. Ogunyemi stated that NEPZA is committed to repositioning itself through various initiatives to ensure continued growth and excellence. He stated that in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of the present administration, the agency has expanded the Free Trade Zones and clusters to 55 across the nation and generated 13,720 jobs in the process

Within the year under review, the authority also registered 39 new enterprises, registered three new trade zones, facilitated the establishment of the Lekki Deep Sea Port development within the Lagos Free Trade Zone in record time and brought in significant Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow into the country’s economy. Within the period under review, the Managing Director informed the Minister that the work of the authority has led to the inflow of $1 billion worth of investment into the country from the trade zones this year alone. This, in addition to the sum of N425 billion, the trade zones paid as customs duty to the Nigeria Customs.

NEPZA, he said, is engaging with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NGX), and other stakeholders to draft regulations for listing Free Zone Enterprises on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

The listing he said will enable free zone entities, to access additional finance through the Nigerian capital market, create a framework for Free Zone Entities to contribute to the growth of the capital market and enhance NEPZA’s regulatory oversight of listed Free Zone Entities.

He appealed for the support of the Honourable Minister to enable the authority to overcome current challenges. These include outdated legal and regulatory frameworks, limited understanding of the Free Trade Zone concept, multiple taxation by revenue agencies, limited access to foreign exchange, and inadequate infrastructure, among others.

Share on Facebook