Mozambique: 5,000 SMEs to get business management training

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Mozambique: 5,000 SMEs to get business management training

8:42 CAT | 22 Oct 2019

Photo: O País

A memorandum signed last Friday by Barclays and AMSCO will see about 5,000 Mozambican small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) receive training in business management over the next three years.

The decisive memorandum, initialled by Barclays Bank and AMSCO, a company which focuses on human capital development across Africa, aims to create competitively sustainable organisations and economic growth for all people in Africa.

“AMSCO will look at the capacity building component,” said Hélia Nsthandoca, AMSCO’s executive director. “Capacity building refers to its own business models, corporate governance, operations management and marketing, and clearly an important component is access to finance, which comes from Barclays.”

Nsthandoca says that it is in capacity building that the major obstacle to the growth of Mozambican SMEs is to be found, a vision with which Pedro Carvalho, Director of Barclays Retail and Business Banking, agrees.

“I think the biggest difficulty SMEs have in dealing with banking is information, training and capacity building,” he clarifies.

Development involves improving the relationship between SMEs and banking. “When banks are comfortable that the company submitting a project and applying for credit is well-trained and has a good business plan, banks have no problem lending,” Carvalho says.

Carvalho says that the Mozambican market is liquid, and banks have plenty of money to lend. And with interest rates falling significantly, relatively cheaper credit is becoming easier to access.

The memorandum signed by Barclays bank and AMSCO on Friday provides for a renewable three-year partnership.

By Cornélio Mwitu

Source: O País