Ecobank Nigeria Limited and Vanguard Economic Forum Series have announced that they are convening an MSME virtual summit to promote and encourage lending support for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the face of changing operating environment in the country. The virtual summit with the theme: ‘Unlocking Credit Growth in a Changing MSME Lending Landscape,’ will be broadcast and streamed live via zoom platform scheduled for May 21st.

The conference in strategic partnership with Nigerian Association of Small & Medium Enterprises (NASME) and Small & Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) will convene keynote speakers and panelist from regulatory agencies of government, policy decision makers, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), business and industry thought leaders.

The speakers and panelists carefully drawn from the banking, trade associations and other key sectors of the economy are subject matter experts in MSMEs and lending.

Confirmed speakers include Managing Director/Chief Executive, Bank of Industry (BoI), Mr Olukayode Pitan; Director General, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency (SMEDAN), Dr. Dikko Rada; Executive Director, Fate Foundation, Adenike Adeyemi; Executive Secretary, Nigerian Association of Small & Medium Enterprises (NASME), Eke Ubiji, and a representative of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), amongst others.

The Guest Of Honour will be the Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business, Jumoke Oduwole, while Patrick Akinwuntan, Managing Director of Ecobank Nigeria will be the Chief Host.

Announcing the conference in a statement, Country Head, SME Ecobank Nigeria Limited, Emeka Agada, said the summit as a thought leadership content platform would deeply dialogue on the critical role of MSMEs as the economic engine room of any prosperous nation and the need to support the sub sector with capital, including examination of key issues and ways of achieving the objective through digital financial inclusion for the MSMEs.