Meet to expose SMEs to best practices

Kenya will in April host an international expo for business matchmaking between corporates and small businesses to scale up their growth.

The expo, which is organised by the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (Kepsa) and other partners, will give small and medium enterprises (SMEs) an opportunity to learn how to deal with challenges that impede their growth.

“SMEs provide 45 per cent of the country’s employment, 50 per cent of work force and Sh1.4 trillion of the gross domestic product (GDP). If we are to make a strong impact ion economic growth, then SMEs have to be the priority,” said Kepsa Director Patricia Ithua during the launch.

“The gap is too wide yet SMEs seem to be the largest contributors to development. We need to scale them up to corporates and finally multinationals.”

The expo dubbed ‘SME Fest 2016’ will take place from April 7-9 in Nairobi. Director Dorcas Muthoni noted that the expo will be ‘different’ as it will encompass business-to-business trade contrary to others that were focused on product promotion.

“Monetary constraints seems to be the major challenge yet there are many ways to finance business like partnering with corporates, borrowing or selling part of the business,” said Ms Muthoni.