By Daniel Zimba:
Economic expert Happy Chirwa has reiterated the need for deliberate policies aimed at empowering small and medium enterprises to grow the local economy.
Among other things, Chirwa suggests the need to incorporate entrepreneurship lesson in the country’s school curriculum to ensure that the generations to come understand the power of entrepreneurship at a tender age.
“We are not moving ahead in terms of our economic policy or business policy. If we can give SMEs a better environment to develop and grow their businesses, as a country we would have done a lot to grow the economy.
“The SME sector is often overlooked but it is one which employs many people. We need the younger generation to embrace that so that their orientation should be to establish businesses to employ people other than seek employment,” Chirwa said.
In a separate interview, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Institute Director Francis Mwamadi acknowledged the existence of gaps in their efforts to empower SMEs.
Mwamadi said the government remains committed to empower SMEs, despite the challenges they face.
“We have a number of programmes which we are implementing with other stakeholders such as the Malawi Bureau of Standards aimed at making sure that our SMEs grow.
“For example, we offer 50 percent discount to enterprises that go for business certification, but we need to come together to seal that gap in terms of our response in promoting small and medium enterprises,” Mwamadi said.
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