ESWATINI RANKED 1ST IN SME REGISTRATION

MBABANE – Every dark cloud has a silver lining.

Although Eswatini has 75 per cent of the 69 000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) which are not registered or licensed to operate, it ranks among the best when compared to five countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). With 25 per cent registered MSME’s, the kingdom has a relatively higher number of registered businesses when compared to Malawi which has only three per cent registered businesses out of one million in existence and Mozambique with only 14 per cent out of 4.9 million entities. Eswatini, which has over 14 000 unregistered businesses, also ranks fairly well when compared to Lesotho which has 18 per cent registered businesses out of a total of 85 000 MSMEs. Further, the country also surpasses Zimbabwe which has 15 per cent registered businesses from a total 2.8 million functional MSMEs.

Explained

MSME Director at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade Mluleki Dlamini explained that the main factors for the lack of business registration in the kingdom was the lack of knowledge and a general feeling by some entrepreneurs that their businesses were too small to be counted among players in the formal economy. MSMEs, whose community employs about 93 000 people in total, refers to a business whose annual turnover does not surpass E8 million in the local context. However, Dlamini pointed out that some of the MSMEs were registered with the various municipal councils but do not reflect in the Registry of Companies.

“The government is working around the clock to inculcate a culture of being registered into the formal economy with a view to improve the number of registered businesses in the kingdom,” said Dlamini during the Ease of Doing Business workshop convened at Happy Valley Hotel yesterday. Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo said it remained imperative to devise interventions on how to migrate unregistered entities to the mainstream economy. He emphasised on the need to highlight the benefits of registration to counteract the unfounded fear and assertions associated with formal registration and openness in one’s business dealings.

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