Association of Female Executives of Trinidad and Tobago

Banks urged to support small and micro businesses.

By COREY CONNELLY Monday, February 1 2010

LABOUR MINISTER Rennie Dumas is urging banks and other lending institutions to support Small and Micro Enterprises (SME) particularly in the areas of risk and venture capital.

He made the appeal on Saturday night in the feature address at an award ceremony in celebration of Small Business Month at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Port-of-Spain.

Dumas said the ability of small businesses to access affordable credit was of great concern to the Government.

“Access to finance is a critical enabler of enterprise development,” he said. “This government wants to ensure there are no market failures to prevent you from accessing finance to grow. It is particularly important that we remain vigilant on your behalf to ensure liquidity and credit problems in the global markets do not trickle down to our SMEs.”

Dumas noted that in the last budget the Government had announced a policy package for stepping up credit to SME’s to improve delivery of credit to small businesses. He said he hoped the Government would be able to double the credit flow to the sector within the next year.

“It must be noted that our challenge is not only to generate a high level of new businesses but also to maximise the number of innovative businesses which will subsequently develop to achieve high growth,” Dumas said.

The Minister added that to be successful in meeting these challenges a spirit of entrepreneurship needed to be embedded in the consciousness of all citizens. He said the education and training sector will have to play a more critical role in developing the entrepreneurial mindsets and equipping the current and future entrepreneurs with the necessary skills.

During the function Edwards Skinner of Summit Cosmetics won the award for the Most Outstanding Small Business.

Yearbook Caribe Company Limited’s CEO Terry Peters and Sharon Wilson received awards for the Most Innovative Small Business and Most Outstanding Micro Business respectively.