Micro and Small Enterprises Authority (MSEA) has partnered with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to see over 5 million SMEs register their businesses in a years’ time.
This is in a bid to formalize the sector for business growth countrywide, an exercise that targets at least 15 million small businesses across the country regardless of the size or the sector.
The collaboration aims at developing a comprehensive database for MSEs and a central reference point for information dissemination for business growth.
Speaking to the media in Nairobi, MSEA CEO Henry Rithaa said most of the MSEs operating in Kenya are informal and unregistered and barely benefit from the government and private sector initiatives to grow the sector.
Rithaa said this registration will help MSEA to support small businesses owners in a better way for they will be able to know the needs they have, their gross per year, thus plan well for them.
“This registration will help us have the statistics of where the small businesses owners are, what they do, whom to support to upgrade their products and market them within the continent,” said the CEO.
While explaining further on the importance of small businesses registration, Rithaa said it will develop an infrastructure that will support not only the formation of businesses, but also bringing together various services that the government is offering to small businesses owners.
He said despite the challenge of Covid-19, the sector created over 14.5 million jobs and acknowledged that last year the sector contributed over 33.5 per cent to the country’s Growth Development Product (GDP).
“According to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, over 80 per cent of new jobs every year are created through MSEAs sector with only 7.4 million being on record of which out of that 75 per cent are not licensed,” said Rithaa while thanking the government for its support to the small business sector.
UNDP Resident Representative, Walid Badawi has called upon the youths, who are engaging in developing their own Micro business and small enterprises to grab the opportunity and register their businesses.
Badawi said they are committed to supporting the registration drive countywide, through this partnership and handed over a vehicle and ICT equipment donated to MSEA by UNDP to facilitate the registration exercise.
By Catherine Muindi and Faith Mukoma
