Friday, May 04, 2007

The Herald: Small businesses clinch lucrative deals

Small businesses clinch lucrative deals
Business Reporter

SMALL to medium-scale entrepreneurs clinched lucrative deals from both local and international businesses during the just-ended Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in Bulawayo, the Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises Development, Mrs Sithembiso Nyoni, said yesterday.

In a telephone interview, she described this year’s ZITF as a "trade fair with a difference" with the entrepreneurs sealing deals with countries such as Botswana and China, among others.

"Most of exhibitors this year were SMEs and their products were of high quality. This is why they experienced brisk business, their products were viable," she said.

This year the ministry sponsored 20 SMEs to exhibit at the fair in a bid to promote and expose them to new markets. "Our goal was to expose them to the local, global and international market and we managed to do that. We had one SME from Marondera who exhibited at one of our stands. He made 440 deals to supply hotels with poultry, including some from Botswana," said the minister.

Mrs Nyoni applauded the Reserve Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono for allocating $16 billion to SMEs, and urged other ministries to work directly with such enterprises to upgrade them.

"We are glad that the governor noted that SMEs have the potential to turn around our economy. As the ministry we are geared to uplift the small entrepreneurs to medium and medium to big business people." she said. Our role has always been to wean small entrepreneurs from SMEs to big enterprises."

Labels: , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home