The Ministry of Commerce and Trade recorded a 25 percent decline in the progress made by businesses that received Micro Small Business Grants in the 2018-2019 Financial Year.

While presenting the Ministry’s Annual report to the Standing Committee on Economic Affairs, Permanent Secretary, Shaheen Ali, explains this is due to a number of factors, including competition, migration, and COVID-19.

However, Ali also says that one in every three businesses that were recipients of the MSME grants were successful.

“Some of the grant recipients had also migrated and also some of the grant recipients that had received grant did not intend to have a sustainable business. Given that the volume was so high, the businesses that were not successful were because they were in a sector that was very, there was very high competition. There was also a lack of business acumen and training that needed to be had for some of the recipients.”

Ali says they’ve learned lessons from the program, which is to increase manpower to monitor and evaluate the progress of these MSMEs.

The Ministry provided grants to 14,249 recipients, which amounts to $14 million.