Wednesday, August 19, 2020 / 10:30AM/MSME Africa / Header Image Credit: MSME Africa

Expertsin Business Financing, Funding and Entrepreneurship will be discussing and profferingsolutions to the issues of raising capital, accessing credits, funding types,business profitability and other related issues at the maiden edition of theMSME Dialogue which will take place on August 22, 2020 by 10am.

TheVirtual event is expected to have owners of Micro, Small and MediumEnterprises, Entrepreneurs and Business owners from different sector inattendance. The event is organized by MSME Africa.

Thespeakers scheduled for the event are: Segun Adaju, ChiefEnergising Officer, Consistent Energy Limited, Victoria Ajayi: DeputyChief Financial Officer of TVC Communications, Oladimeji Peters, Acting CEO, FirstCentralCredit Bureau Limited & Chairman, Credit Bureau Association of Nigeria(CBAN) and   Mark Oguh, Chief Financial Officer, Titan TrustBank.

Itis common knowledge that funding and financing are pivotal and fundamentalissues to business owners. The COVID-19 pandemic has further worsened thesituation for MSMEs leaving them with the challenges of trying to stay afloatand operating profitably.

Accordingto a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) from "PwC's MSME Survey 2020- Building tolast", Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the country face an estimatedN617.3 billion financing gap annually which accounts for less than one per centof banks' credit in 2018.The report further stated that besides obtainingfinance, finding customers and infrastructure deficits also accounted for thetop of the most pressing problems for small businesses, while generatingelectricity constituted the biggest cost to the MSMEs.

Inthe words of Seye Olurotimi who is the convener of the event and President ofMSME Africa: " Funding ,financing and profitability  and big deals to business owners; they posemajor challenges to the growth and survival of MSMEs and that is why we havedecided to address and proffer solutions to them at the very first edition ofthe MSME Dialogue".

Speakingfurther, Olurotimi who is an acclaimed MSME expert and champion stated: 'Frommy interractions with MSME operators over the year, I have realised that thereis lot of gap with regards to information on the various financing types andthe requirements for accessing them and this must be addressed. If we reallywant to grow the equally; we must pay attention to the over 41 millionbusinesses who fall into the MSME category".

MSMEAfrica, a multi-faceted resource platform for Micro, Small and MediumEnterprises (MSME) in Africa providing news, opportunities, articles andresources for MSMEs, Entrepreneurs and Startups. The platform is poised tobuild the biggest network and community of MSMEs in Africa in years to come.

Intendingparticipants can register for the event via: http://bit.ly/MSMEDIALOGUE

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