This is one of the four programmes earmarked for execution in 2013.

With a budget of FCFA 9.714 billion in the 2013 fiscal year, the Ministry of Small and Medium-size Enterprises, Social Economy and Handicrafts (MINPMESSA) is bracing up to execute four main programmes with hopes that at term, the country’s small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) and industries (SMIs) would have been fully competitive to stand the test of time.

In a press declaration after defending the envelop before the Budget and Finance Committee of the National Assembly on Saturday December 1, the Minister, Laurent Serge Etoundi Ngoa, said the 2013 package increased by FCFA 3.360 billion from that of 2012.

With an investment package of FCFA 5.239 billion, with FCFA 1.439 billion being funds from the debt-relief programme, C2D expenditure, four programmes will be executed. These include: “Improving the competiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises.” The FCFA 1.2 billion programme, the Minister said, seeks to improve on productiveness through upgrading local enterprises and facilitating access to factors of production.

It also consists in building the technical and managerial capacities of SMEs, developing growth-oriented sectors so as to encourage the emergence of a healthy and competitive manufacturing SMEs sector. There is also a FCFA 4.2 billion “Promoting private initiative and improving the business climate for SMEs” programme, a FCFA 1.28 billion “Programme for promoting collective entrepreneurship and improving upon the performance of very small enterprises and handicrafts” as well as the FCFA 3 billion “Programme for capacity building of MINPMESSA for implementing the strategy.”

The C2D funds are for the support project to agricultural and Agric-food SME whose main components are technico-economic information among others.