Seven hundred enterprises in Cross River State have benefited from the disbursement of 2billion naira of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Fund (MSMEDF) , south-south Nigeria.
The disbursement exercise which was carried out in Calabar, the state capital, through Cross River State Micro-finance and Enterprise Development Agency (MEDA), was the Phase one of the scheme which saw beneficiaries access a total of 1.4billion naira of the 2billion naira fund.
Cross River State Governor, Liyel Imoke, said at the ceremony, that he was impressed about the participation of youths and women in the scheme, who according to him are new generation of entrepreneurs.
The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, who was represented by the State Control, Graham Kalio, disclosed that the latest survey in the country indicated that there were about 17.3 million MSMEs in operation, pointing that most of them were facing serious financial access challenges, with the gap put at N9.6 trillion.
According to him, CBN has identified those challenges and new measures of distribution to ensure direct access of funds to beneficiaries and aid them in expanding their businesses.
