Midlands Correspondent
THE Ministry of Small to Medium Enterprises and Co-operative Development will at the end of this month launch the Small to Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs) incubation centre and other facilities that SMEs will access after formalisation, a Cabinet minister has said.
Addressing students during a public lecture at the Midlands State University (MSU) on Friday, Small to Medium and Co-operative Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni said the incubation of businesses was being done in conjunction with the Indian government and they had identified, among 24 others the baking, honey and toilet paper entrepreneurs.
The public lecture was held under the theme “Student Business Incubation and Entrepreneurship: Beyond teaching the theory of small to medium-scale enterprises in Zimbabwe.”
Minister Nyoni said she was especially charmed by the resilience shown by small to medium enterprises who had carved out markets for their products, with some going as far as India to sell moringa, a tree whose leaves are believed to have medicinal properties.
“On April 21 (2017), we will be launching all facilities that SMEs will be able to access after formalisation which are the incubation. Zimra also promised a tax holiday to all SMEs who formalise before June 2017,” said Minister Nyoni.
“We are looking at having all these small items that we are importing made in Zimbabwe. After this incubation we don’t want imports of small things. We also hope that MSU will partner with us in virtual incubation, in the training in management, accounting and banking of SMEs.”
Minister Nyoni said her ministry had received interest from Steward Bank and some students who had left university who would want to partner the ministry in this pursuit. She reiterated the need for academia to be part of the business ecosystem, adding that tertiary institutions were imperative in this regard.
She also said she had spoken to some SMEs who said the six-month tax holiday that Zimra had availed was inadequate and needed a review, to which she said “the Ministry of Finance and Zimra would look at it.”
The Ministry of Industry and Commerce, she said, was linking SMEs to its export department. Minister Nyoni added that a Japanese delegation which comes to Zimbabwe every year in March had placed orders for goods from SMEs worth about $10 million.
The Government has been calling for the formalisation of SMEs so that they also contribute to the national coffers after reports that about $6 billion is circulating in the informal market. She said statistics at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe indicated that SMEs were contributing about 70 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic product, while 67 percent of Bulawayo’s revenue came from small to medium entrepreneurs.
Construction of the $1 million state-of-the-art India-Africa incubation centre was completed in August 2017 and it was expected that it would be operational in September last year. Located in Waterfalls, Harare, it is envisaged that the centre will go a long way towards the provision of equipment and technical expertise, which SMEs require.
The incubation system is a concept in which entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs will be trained in a business area of their interest on different periods of time depending on the complexity of each particular line of business.
Upon completion of the training, graduates would be assisted with funding to enable them to buy their own machinery and grow their own businesses.
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