This event provided a valuable opportunity for these businesses to engage and network with various financial institutions and support agencies operating in Saint Lucia.
Export Saint Lucia CEO, Sunita Daniel, explains the importance of funding for local businesses. As the country’s main brand exporter, Export Saint Lucia is responsible for creating avenues for entrepreneurs to sell their products overseas.
Without the resources, Daniel notes, businesses can’t meet the capacity requirements for export.
“For businesses to be able to expand, they need increased working capital [so] we have brought together a number of different financial institutions from around Saint Lucia [for our] MSMEs. We have a large number of persons in attendance today so the entrepreneurs can go to them and get information as to exactly what the credit facilities are that are available, and how they could make proper decisions for their businesses,” the Export Saint Lucia CEO explained.
A representative from the Ministry of Commerce, Jonathan Arlain, expressed the Ministry’s commitment to ensuring business development among the small business sector.
The Ministry has revitalised its Small Business Development Sector to provide small loans and grants to businesses to enhance their capacity to produce.
Arlain disclosed that close to 1,000 businesses have applied for the MSME programme’s loan-grant facility. Financing, he noted, is crucial to business development.
“Recently, the Ministry of Commerce, through the MSME Loan Grant Programme, was providing support to MSMEs. During this program, we had a total of almost 1,000 MSMEs who applied for financing under this programme, a number of which have been approved, have received the funding and are using the funding to improve their businesses and to improve the services that they offer,” he said.
The MSME Loan-Grant is an EC$10 million facility aimed at providing post COVID-19 pandemic relief to registered MSMEs. It is a combination of 70% grant and 30% loan funding at an attractive interest rate of only 3%, with no collateral requirements.
Other funding agencies, like the Youth Economy Agency, were in attendance to provide guidance to emerging entrepreneurs.