SMEDAN offers free registration for 250,000 MSMEs

The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency (SMEDAN) has announced a presidential approval for the registration of N250,000 businesses in partnership with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC). Director General of SMEDAN, Dr. Charles Odii made the disclosure in Abuja on Wednesday during an SME stakeholder engagement on the new tax laws. He said, “SMEDAN has […]

SMEDAN offers free registration for 250,000 MSMEs

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The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency (SMEDAN) has announced a presidential approval for the registration of N250,000 businesses in partnership with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

Director General of SMEDAN, Dr. Charles Odii made the disclosure in Abuja on Wednesday during an SME stakeholder engagement on the new tax laws.

He said, “SMEDAN has gotten a presidential approval for the registration of 250,000 businesses for free. What MSMEs need to do is just go to SMEDAN website and register their business and when they are done, SMEDAN will pass it to CAC free of charge.”

Speaking further, he said, “Before COVID, when we counted the SMEs we had in Nigeria, there were approximately 41 million. After COVID, we lost approximately 3 million SMEs. And the current statistics right now, we have 39, 224,380 SMEs.

“We want to make this better by improving access to credit, especially single-digit interest loans and grants.”

“We have also signed MoUs with different state governments. We signed with my predecessor here, the governor of Katsina State. We signed with the governor of Anambra. We signed with the governor of Zamfara, among others.”

Also speaking, Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal and Tax reforms noted that with the current tax laws, 98% of low and middle income employees will pay less tax, while noting that the laws are meant to reduce taxes and not to increase them.

He said, “You cannot build a society where you don’t allow businesses to breathe. The secret success for any society is when we allow these 35m big, nano micro and small medium businesses to grow.”