Afrexim bank organized a 4-day Trade finance seminar talking about the troubles of SMEs, held in
Kampala, Uganda.
Speakers who took the podium talked about how poorly SMEs have been served by formal financial
institutions on the continent despite the sector providing about 60% to 70% of Jobs.
The bank of Uganda Deputy Governor Micheal Atingi Ego noted that SMEs are the main drivers of
economic growth and their main challenge has been limited access to financing from formal financing
institutions. The annual SMEs financing gaps averaged $8.8b, a figure representing more than half of
this year’s fiscal year annual budget.
Uganda has an agenda to promote industrialization and value addition as key drivers of economic
transformation. FCI, the global representative body for factoring and financing of open account
domestic and International trade presented some data; The world factoring statistics indicate that the
factoring and receivables finance industry volume witnessed a significant growth of 13.5% in 2021 after
the devastating impact of COVID-19 in 2020, reporting a decline in volume of -6.5%.
SMEs need working capital to enable them to survive in this business climate that is very harsh for the
SMEs.