{"id":44845,"date":"2017-04-21T09:12:57","date_gmt":"2017-04-21T07:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=44845"},"modified":"2017-04-21T09:12:57","modified_gmt":"2017-04-21T07:12:57","slug":"government-commits-to-sme-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2017\/04\/21\/government-commits-to-sme-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Government commits to SME development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>G<\/strong>overnment says it is committed to address issues affecting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contrary to what other groups are saying.<\/p>\n<p>According to government officials, this is being done through the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Institute (Smedi).<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the Small and Medium Enterprises Association (Smea) speaking through its president James Chiutsi raised concerns over government\u2019s attitude towards the development of SMEs.<\/p>\n<p>Chiutsi said there are a number challenges, including policy gaps, that the government needs to look into to create an enabling environment for the SME sector.<\/p>\n<p>Bu t responding to a questionnaire, Smedi Director of Business Information and Training Edward Chilima said the issues raised by Smea are already being worked on.<\/p>\n<p>Chilima said some of the developments taking place include the process of finalising the re-launch of Smedi\u2019s business training institute at Mponela which will focus on business training and inculcating an entrepreneurship culture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are developing a full curriculum to focus on entrepreneurship and small scale business development. The training institute will teach upcoming and existing SMEs skills on entrepreneurship. The institute will be operational by the next financial year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He also said Smed i is currently finalising preparations to host an incubation centre at Mponela Training Institute.<\/p>\n<p>The training institute, according to Chilima, will act as a modern business model centre that will teach Malawian SMEs hands on business skills in various business areas, including agribusiness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis will equip Malawian SMEs with value addition skills through a practical approach. This unique business model will be operational before the end of this year. This is a game changer.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSmedi is providing free services to upcoming SMEs. These include training in business skills, business plans, proposal writing and advisory services on tax, registration et cetera,\u201d Chilima said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Government says it is committed to address issues affecting small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contrary to what other groups are saying. According to government officials, this is being done through the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Institute (Smedi). Last week, the Small and Medium Enterprises Association (Smea) speaking through its president James Chiutsi raised concerns [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44849,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44845\/revisions\/44849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}