The Ministry of Trade, Co-operatives, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Communication today adds “micro” to its name and will now be formally known as the Ministry of Trade, Co-operatives, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, and Communication.
The name change was approved by Cabinet in one of its meetings in February this year, where it gave due recognition to the micro business sector as an integral part of the MSME community in Fiji, to which is attributed “approximately 82 per cent of registered businesses in Fiji… equivalent to approximately 30,000 businesses excluding unregistered and informally operating enterprises.”
Minister for Trade and MSME Manoa Kamikamica said while the name addition does not change the Ministry’s stance, it will affirm that the Ministry is looking after all sectors.
“There were some concerns that we were only looking after the small MSMEs,” he said at a press conference yesterday on the Government’s allocation to MSME work.
“For us, one of the things that I certainly hope we will get to is to start with micro business and help them right to becoming a small and medium or even more.
“And if we can see some of those success stories too, that’s the whole reason why we’ve set up the way we’ve set up. So in order to do that, our ministry also works with other ministries to try and help to ensure that the money (allocated to MSME work) is being well spent.”
Application for funding from the Ministry’s MSME’s funding allocation of $3.6million for MSMEs is now open to MSME operators Fiji-wide.
