Study highlights SME's economic potential
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday December 13, 2019 13:08
The International Trade Centre (ITC), in partnership with the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry as well as the Local Enterprise Authority, conducted the recent study, which covered 616 businesses across the country.
The surveyed businesses were largely of micro-size, with nearly 40% of them headed by women. More than two-thirds of the surveyed businesses do not import or export any goods. The businesses were also mainly into the services sector, with another 28% in agriculture and mining and the balance in manufacturing.
Researchers who worked on the study, known as the SME Competitiveness Study, stressed the importance of investing in management skills amongst women and young entrepreneurs, noting this could yield dividends in terms of increased capacity to meet the quantity, cost and time demands of international and domestic markets.
“Similarly, efforts to address a bias against the financing of agricultural, micro and remote firms could mitigate the cashflow issues that undermine the competitiveness of these companies,” reads the report, launched by the Ministry this week.
It further suggested that a strong, innovating services sector is an asset at a time when the global services trade is booming and the share of services in global value chains is rising. “There is an opportunity to invest in information and communications technology infrastructure and other support for services sector exports.
Furthermore, policies and programmes that bring together training institutions and the private sector can promote the appropriate matching of workforce skills and business needs so companies can access the skills needed to compete internationally.”
Efforts to expand access to reliable electricity and roads, and to mitigate exposure to climate change risks, would put even more wind in the sails of Botswana’s SMEs, which represent 90% of businesses locally.
The SME Competitiveness survey was aimed at unleashing SMEs full potential to support economic development. Through a survey and other sources, the researchers analysed data identifying challenges and strengths in firms’ capabilities and business ecosystem. Although the focus was on SMEs, large companies were included in the analysis for the sake of comparison.