Public-private partnerships critical in growing SME sector, says Minister at JSE capital matching event

The Johannesburg Stock Exchange celebrated the progress of its SME Rise Capital Matching programme at an event in Cape Town on Wednesday.

SME Rise connects private companies to business benefits; funding readiness, international expansion, and capital access: "Our programmes and platforms support small, medium, and large enterprises in scaling up by growing market share, accessing funding, and improving their competitiveness".

The Rise Capital Matching Roadshow is a collaborative initiative between the JSE, government institutions, funders and SME development organisations to facilitate funding access for small and medium enterprises.

Over the last three years, the initiative engaged close to 2,500 SMEs nationally, with over 1,000 of these businesses from the Western Cape.

"SMEs in the Western Cape received over R36 million in funding, with a further R40 million currently in the pipeline", said Small Business Development Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams at the event.

In conversation with Stephen Grootes, the Minister stresses how these kinds of partnerships with the private sector are absolutely critical in growing South Africa's SME sector.

"As government, we can't do it alone", she reiterates.

"When we launched our National Integrated Small Enterprise Development (NISED) framework, we identified four pillars... and one talked to public private partnerships. This is why it's been an exciting journey that we have travelled with the JSE, since the beginning of our partnership three years back."

This work was built by collaboration, shared belief, and the kind of partnership that places SMEs at the centre of economic growth, the Minister says.

Listing the projects and changes to legislation her Ministry is busy with, she cites the creation of the very necessary Office of the Small Enterprise Ombud Service.

"As we engaged with the ecosystem we listened to entrepreneurs talking about how challenging it is for them that at times they're victimised by those that contract them. We said, let there be an ombud that can represent the voice of the entrepreneurs and be able to issue whatever penalties necessary."

It is important that every intervention on behalf of SMEs is anchored into law, says the Minister.

To hear more from the Minister of Small Business Development, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article