SMEs dared on growth

Ministry of Industrialisation, Business, Trade and Tourism has dared the country’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to position themselves as catalysts of national development, job creation and foreign exchange generation. In his speech when closing the five-day Southern Africa Trade and Connectivity Project (Satcp) boot camp in Lilongwe on Friday, the ministry’s Principal Secretary Wiskes Nkombezi told young entrepreneurs that Malawi’s economic transformation depends less on the size of the public sector and more on the strength of its private businesses. He said: “These are the people that will be creating jobs.

These are the people that can export so that the country can generate foreign exchange. “These are the people that, when they ramp up their operations, Malawi Revenue Authority will be getting taxes from them.” Nkombezi’s remarks come at a time Malawi is grappling with fiscal stress, high interest rates and limited access to affordable finance, with lending rates hovering around 35 percent and stringent collateral requirements lock many small firms out of formal credit markets. The policy rate, the rate at which commercial banks borrow from the central bank as the lender of last resort, is at 26 percent, but banks charge as high as 35 percent, particularly for risky borrowers such as small businesses.

Nkombezi acknowledged the financing gap, noting that government-backed support mechanisms are necessary in a high-cost credit environment. “Government comes in by creating a conducive business environment through laws and policies. Secondly, through support such as this project, which is providing matching grants,” he said.

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Under the six-year World Bank-funded Satcp, qualifying firms can access grants, ranging from about $15 000 (about K26 million) to about $25 000 (about K44 million) to scale operations. The boot camp finalists were selected from 1 308 applicants, placing them among the top 30 percent of high-potential ventures nationwide. Collectively, the ventures represent funding requests exceeding $7.7 million (about K13 billion).

Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises executive secretary James Chiutsi said in an interview on Friday that the deeper problem is not just capital but bankability. “When we train these people on how to come up with bankable projects, that is when they can easily access financing,” he said, arguing that weak project preparation has historically discouraged investors. Sycamore Consult managing director Audrey Mwala, whose organisation provided training during the boot camp, said poor financial discipline remains a structural constraint to the growth of businesses.

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