Federal Govt, Moniepoint Report Highlights Small Businesses’ Fragile State

The 2025 Informal Economy Report has highlighted the continued fragile fiscal authorities of Nigeria’s tiny businesses sector, adjacent though it remains the heartbeat of the nation’s economy.

Vice President Kashim Shettima reaffirmed that Nigeria’s informal assemblage is the backbone of nationalist productivity and a cardinal operator of resilience amid planetary economical shocks.

Speaking during the unveiling of the 2025 Informal Economy Report successful Abuja, Vice President Shettima, represented by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, said the Tinubu medication places a precocious precedence connected the informal sector, describing it.

Shettima commended Moniepoint Microfinance Bank’s decade-long committedness to empowering tiny businesses crossed Nigeria and Africa. He lauded the fintech’s contributions to deepening fiscal inclusion, supporting micro, tiny and mean enterprises (MSMEs), and promoting entrepreneurship among younker and women.

The 2025 Informal Economy Report, jointly produced by Moniepoint, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), paints a sobering representation of the fiscal vulnerabilities confronting millions of tiny concern operators.

According to the findings, 42 per cent of informal assemblage operators bash not person capable savings to past beyond 1 period without income, underscoring the fragile fiscal information of tiny businesses nationwide. While 65 per cent of businesses recorded gross maturation successful the past year, lone 47 per cent reported higher profits owed to rising operational costs. The study further revealed that astir 38 per cent of operators gain little than N10,000 daily, adjacent arsenic 4 successful 10 of specified businesses enactment arsenic employers of labour.

It besides recovered that women represent a larger stock of informal concern owners, portion younker information continues to emergence contempt constricted entree to backing and ceremonial banking services.

Vice President Shettima said the Tinubu medication is committed to galvanising the informal system for greater productivity and sustainable growth.“The informal system lies astatine the bosom of Nigeria’s communicative of resilience, creativity and enterprise—from marketplace traders to artisans, tiny work providers, and young integer entrepreneurs,” helium said. “Small and mean enterprises are the heartbeat of Nigeria’s transformation, which is to support driving innovation, occupation creation, and trade.”

He added that Nigeria’s 39 cardinal MSMEs relationship for astir 96 per cent of each businesses, lend astir 50 per cent to the GDP, and employment implicit 84 per cent of the nation’s workforce—figures that bespeak the standard and value of the sector.

Shettima besides praised Moniepoint’s innovative fiscal solutions designed for informal operators and reiterated the government’s readiness to make an enabling situation for commercialized and integer innovation to thrive.

“The medication of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is committed to creating favourable conditions for commercialized to thrive crossed Africa, and we are positioning Nigeria astatine the forefront of Africa’s integer transformation,” helium added.

The managing manager of Moniepoint Microfinance Bank, Babatunde Olofin, said the Informal Economy Report is much than a survey — it is “a reflector of Nigeria’s economical reality, particularly for millions who marque their surviving extracurricular the ceremonial system.”

Olofin said Moniepoint’s ngo is to guarantee the inclusivity and sustainable maturation of tiny businesses careless of their background.

“Recognising that galore successful this assemblage run without ceremonial banking relationships, we supply accessible tools that simplify payments, collections, and assistance them negociate their businesses,” helium explained. “Beyond technology, we’ve invested successful gathering a enactment strategy that speaks their connection and meets them wherever they are.”

The fintech firm, helium noted, has built flexible and user-friendly solutions to guarantee that informal entrepreneurs are not near down successful Nigeria’s evolving integer economy.

In a goodwill message, the Special Adviser to the President connected Job Creation and MSMEs, Temitola Adekunle-Johnson, hailed Moniepoint’s interaction successful transforming millions of tiny businesses done its low-cost fiscal services and inclusive products.

He noted that the fintech’s decade-long committedness had boosted occupation creation, accrued entree to finance, and strengthened economical information among women and youth.

Director-General of SMEDAN, Charles Odii, disclosed that the fig of micro, tiny and mean enterprises successful Nigeria has grown to 39,654,385. He attributed overmuch of this enlargement to the resilience of tiny entr...