Friday, March 29, 2024

Small and medium businesses to be digitized

The government is planning to help digitize small and medium businesses over the next few years in a bid to boost national productivity and transform the economy. This is according to Dr. Chris Kiptoo, the Principal Secretary at the State Department for Trade.

While speaking at the launching of Jumia Kenya’s 2018 Black Friday mega annual sales event on Thursday, Dr. Kiptoo noted that SMEs are currently contributing up to 25 per cent of the country’s GDP while employing 70 per cent of the workforce.

Small and medium businesses to be digitized

“Making SMEs successful is at the heart of the government’s Big Four Agenda on creating jobs for the youth,” he said. Currently, over 10,000 SMEs are already selling on the Jumia E-Commerce platform. More are expected to join the basket during this year’s Jumia Black Friday sale which will kick off on November 2, and run through the month of November.

Strikingly, Jumia will run this year’s Black Friday as Kenya prepares to host the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) e-commerce event.

According to Dr. Kiptoo, this event will be held in Kenya from December 10 to 14 this year at the United Nations, Gigiri.

Small and medium businesses to be digitized

“Kenya’s E-Commerce is now estimated at 6 per cent of all purchases made in 2017. This has also seen Kenya emerge as a leading e-commerce hub in the continent alongside South Africa and Nigeria,” he said, adding that 27 per cent of firms in Kenya now sell their products online.

Dr. Kiptoo further urged SMEs to take advantage of the young techno savvy youth who are now opting to shop online due to the high rate of smartphone penetration in Kenya. Currently smartphones penetration rate stands at 29.6 million unique mobile subscriptions in 2017 and is expected to rise to 35 million by 2025.

“We expect this to set the ground for the prosperity of e-commerce in the country with affordable smartphone and accessible internet for this breed of customers,” he said.

Small and medium businesses to be digitized

Dr. Kiptoo further notes that the government is working towards spreading the impact of digitalization by becoming digital market makers.

“We are making progressive steps in this direction through promotion of innovation and creation of a business enabling environment,” he said. “We shall work to foster digital economic activities that benefit enterprises and society, and that have a clear competitive advantage in the global marketplace.”

During this launch, Jumia announced that it is planning to increase its vendor base from the current 10,000 to 15,000 by 2019.

Small and medium businesses to be digitized

“We plan to invest significantly in training for small and medium size businesses in 2019,” said Jumia’s managing director Sam Chappatte. “Through this we hope to continue playing a part in the digitization of the economy and job creation, and to support the government’s Big Four Agenda on youth employment.”

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