Iipumbu calls on SMEs to trade in consortiums

Iipumbu calls on SMEs to trade in consortiums Minister of Industrialisation and Trade, Lucia Iipumbu on Monday called on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Otjozondjupa Region to trade their goods and services in cooperatives.

Iipumbu made the call at a consultative meeting attended by nearly 70 people at Otjiwarongo.

The meeting was aimed at sharing information on how best the ministry and business persons, including informal traders, can work together to produce quality products for sale in and outside the country.

The meeting was attended by livestock and crop farmers, contractors, business persons in the manufacturing, tailoring, water bottling, real estate and chicken farming industries, amongst others.

“We as the ministry can easily find you a market when you trade as a group instead of as an individual,” she said.

Therefore, according to Iipumbu, the business persons and farmers in the Otjozondjupa Region should re-align themselves and form business groups that would produce goods and services in large quantities and enable them to supply local and international markets without running out of stock.

Middlemen

Several business persons also advised the ministry to cut out middlemen, as these allegedly, in the past, took up half the resources aimed at funding upcoming businesses.

Berseba Ndjoze, a tailor for the past five years at Otjiwarongo, also called on the minister to see to it that a law is passed to empower local tailors in different towns to manufacture school uniforms for the country.

Another business personality in water bottling and livestock farming, Jeaneth Kuhanga, at the same meeting said the ministry should extensively explore the agricultural niches and explicitly place them as a priority.

Wilma Gaweses, on her part, said the trade ministry should strengthen its business monitoring and evaluation arm so that it can evaluate and coach upcoming business people countrywide.

Presentations on the second Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP II) and trade agreements and on funding opportunities of the Development Bank of Namibia (DBN) were also made at the meeting. - Nampa