COMMERCE TO HOST SME SEMINARS

 
MBABANE – The Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade, Manqoba Khumalo, says the country will host investment summits, develop small and medium enterprises, host the State business Relations and execute committed projects.

This was an outline for the year, which was shared by Khumalo in retrospect of lessons attained from the past year. He said these programmes were part of the ministry’s intentions to improve the ease of doing business while also bolstering the economy through a variety of empowerment programmes.
He said the investment laboratories were aimed at having all stakeholders in one room, which would in turn bring about bridges where there was a gap. This, he said, would be attained through firm commitments and paying more attention to the sectors.

In dealing with the SMEs, Khumalo said it was essential for the ministry and financiers to come up with strategies that would make finance more accessible to SMEs while also creating markets for them. To attain a success in this goal, the minister said the citizens shall be empowered and SME roadshows would be a constant in order to market the business entities and also make their brands visible to the country.

Khumalo said there would be an apex meeting between stakeholders and the Prime Minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, twice a year to capacitate entrepreneurs under the intended State business relations programme.

He said there would a full-time secretariat for this programme while there shall also be theme-based sessions. The minister further noted that there was a need for removing a lot of barriers as there were many investors who were still being frustrated by some programmes in the country that were not aligned.

Urgency

On the other hand, Khumalo said speed and urgency was part of the hindrances that stalled the improvement of the business sector. When sharing the challenges they faced as a ministry, he said speed and urgency lacked in the ministry. He said it still took very long to get things done.
He said this challenge was one of five key challenges that were experienced by his ministry in the past year. He noted that the country also declined in the ease of doing business rankings.

He said this coerced his ministry to devise a new strategy which shall be implemented this year with the aim of improving the sector. Another challenge the business community faced was the lack of funds. Khumalo said projects were abandoned or sub-standard solutions implemented in a quest to solve this challenge, which yielded minimal results.

Reflecting on the past year, Khumalo further said the country lost the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) bid due to an inadequate lobbying strategy. Also, in the past year, Khumalo highlighted that the collaboration and alignment of priorities with stakeholders did not take off. The last challenge highlighted by Khumalo was the failure to afford small and medium enterprises adequate financing and exposure to international markets.

On the other hand, the Federation of the Swazi Business Community (FESBC) requested that government level the ground for SMEs. The Deputy President of FESBC, Hezekiel Mabuza, said they needed government to assist them in taking advantage of the export markets that were available to local SMEs in the countries with bilateral agreements with the country. Mabuza further said the minister of Finance had to devise programmes that would capacitate the SME sector.

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