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Business Reporter
THE Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) will roll out a $100 million loan fund to promote the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the bloc, the secretary general, Mr Sindiso Ngwenya, said yesterday. Comesa region is made up of 19 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa.
In an interview on the sidelines of the launch of the Zimbabwe Leather Sector Strategy Development in Bulawayo, Mr Ngwenya said work was already in progress to set up the fund which should be operational within the next 12 months.
“The setting up of a fund to look into financing of SMEs in Comesa is a decision that the Comesa secretariat passed at our recent meeting in Kampala, Uganda. Work is already in progress to set up this fund.
“In the next three months, we want to start with a pilot project under a $5 million facility. The pilot project will be done with SMEs in Zambia,” he said.
Mr Ngwenya said some of the major challenges constraining SMEs were limited access to affordable funding as well as stringent collateral security requirements upon borrowing from banks.
“In the next 12 months we are looking forward to setting up a $100 million facility that will give support to all SMEs in the Comesa region. This facility will allow SMEs to access funding without collateral and to facilitate that we are working on a guarantee facility,” said Mr Ngwenya.
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