Small and Medium Enterprises urged to explore the African markets for growth.
Drake Nyamugabwa
Uganda’s small and medium enterprises have been advised to focus on benefiting from the available African market before thinking about international links if they are easily growing their business fairly.
The Small and Medium enterprises were sensitized during a workshop organized by The Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises (FSME) held on 22nd March 2022 at Uganda Manufacturers Association ground in Kampala. The workshop on Africa Free Trade Area for Smal and Medium enterprises with support from UNDP Uganda
The workshop was organized with the objective of sensitizing the federation members on several trade issues on how to harness from the African market with the help of the opportunities of the African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The Executive Director, FSME, John Walugembe, picture above told members that African markets are more reliable than international blocs because of the changing international trading regimes on standards, quantity, capital requirements, and more and may not be easy to penetrate.
“We are urging our SMEs to first think of serving the African market and not the international market. We must work together and sell goods and services to Africans because our market is big. It is better we start here.” he said
The Former Minister of Trade, Amelia Kyambadde, Uganda’s former minister of trade, industry, and cooperatives said, matters AfCFTA is important because it could easily boost economic growth and socio-economic transformation for Uganda.
“We are here to see that SMEs benefit from this bloc…some people have asked me before— EAC failed to work, how will this one work? I want to assure you that these things will work.” she said
Kyambadde promised to continue joining partnerships geared towards sensitizing the people to understand the key issues including standards and related opportunities for this big market.
She added that If efforts are to concentrate on training SMEs, we shall be on the right track to industrialization, empowering communities, entrepreneurship and investing in Africa.
“SMEs play a pivotal role in improving the trade sector and economy at large by ½” she said
AfCFTA creates a market of 1.2bn people with a combined GDP of US$3tn. Experts in this area believe that its tangible implementation would reshape economies across the region and enhance output in key sectors, diversify exports, accelerate growth, and attract foreign direct investment.
