Mrs Julie Momah, Lagos State Zonal Coordinator, Technology Incubation Centre, Agege has urged Nigerian youths to be more creative and think of ideas that could generate revenue in spite of the recession.
She gave the advice while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Friday.
Momah, who was speaking on the state of the nation for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria, stated that most Nigerians were beginning to think of more interesting ways to generate revenue for themselves.
According to her, this they do by solving a problem or two for others, especially in the aspect of food and industrial needs.
She said that many youths now create jobs for themselves through fashion designing, agriculture, food processing, and sales of industrial materials.
She added that more than 500,000 jobs could be created if the trend continued.
“It will interest you to know that a lot more people now make money from business consultancy services, transport and logistics solutions for farmers, food processing and even cooking services.
“While we look up to the government to provide a more enabling environment for businesses to thrive, we need to look around for problems that most people around us face, and seek to meet them.
“At the incubation centre, we offer support for budding entrepreneurs and industrialists, pending when they are able to stand on their own,” she said.
Momah stressed further on the need for more industrial clusters across the country to enable potential industrialists begin their business from the micro scale.
She said that SMEs and micro/informal businesses provide about 80 per cent of the nation’s employment, hence the need to encourage and support them to increase their capacity.
Mr Saviour Iche, the President, Association of Micro Entrepreneurs of Nigeria (AMEN), who also spoke to NAN, stated that most members of the association had been forced to change their business lines.
“Our members have changed their businesses from using imported products to the ones that use locally-sourced materials like wood and cassava.’’
He said that the flexible monetary policy was a mixed blessing to manufacturers as some of them still find the exchange rate unaffordable, especially for those who source for raw materials abroad. (NAN)