'Overwhelming' responseto Small Business Centre

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribune media.net

MORE than 1,500 persons have registered with the Small Business Development Centre (SBDC), its executive director said yesterday, describing the response as "overwhelming".

Addressing the Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) seminar, Davinia Blair, said: "We have 1,533 persons registered for the Small Business Development Centre. The response has been overwhelming."

She added that the Centre, branded as the Access Accelerator, serves as an incubator, offering advisory services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as mentorship and monitoring of their progress.

"A lot of individuals are coming to just access credit but genuinely want to understand their business," Ms Blair said. "We believe that the SME sector is the backbone of the Bahamian economy and it is showing up in the numbers.

"Ninety eight percent of businesses registered in this country are SMEs, and they employ 47 percent of all the employees in the country. Unfortunately, as a whole, they produce 20 percent of the turnover. As a whole the SMEs are a force to be reckoned with and we should support them."

Ms Blair added that, to-date, roughly six groups of about 15 individuals have graduated so far from the SBDC's start-up course. She said there are now plans to develop a database of small businesses.

With the Government committing $5m per annum for the next five years to small business development, Ms Blair said: "What we are hoping to do with the first $5m is leverage it so that financial institutions, investment houses, private investors, some of the offshore and onshore companies have all started talking about how they could more support small business.

"At the end of the day that $5m will yield around $8m for small business development, and all of that will be invested before June 30. Come July 1, the clock resets."