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200 SMEs selected for assistance in Congo

The beneficiaries will receive subsidies from the Congolese state under the shared cost mechanism. The selection committee which was presented on November 20 will re-sort the two hundred files to retain only one hundred finalists, before the distinction of fifty winners.

The activity is part of the Business Development and Competitiveness Support Project (Padec), financed with a loan from the World Bank to the tune of 25 million dollars, approximately 14.6 billion CFA francs. Two tools have thus been put in place: the Business Plan Course (CPA) and the Support Fund for the Development of Small and Medium Enterprises (FADPME). Ultimately, the winners will benefit from prizes ranging from three to fifteen million FCFA in addition to a coaching program.

Due to the health crisis linked to covid-19, the management team of Padec decided to simplify the process of the CPA and the fund. Facilities are granted to promoters of businesses in creation or development, whose resources have been affected by the pandemic.

Opening the launching workshop of the beneficiary selection committee, the director of the cabinet of the Minister of Planning, Ferdinand Sosthène Likouka, insisted on the vocation of Padec which is to stimulate the creative genius and the taste for ‘innovation. “Our country is about creating national champions. To meet the challenge, the government is embarking on a concerted and dynamic approach with the private sector. This is the meaning I give to the missions devolved on the CPA, “said Ferdinand Sosthène Likouka.

It should be noted that the process of granting subsidies to Congolese entrepreneurs takes place in several phases. Before the launch of the activities of the selection committee, a national campaign was launched last March along the Pointe-Noire-Brazzaville-Ouesso corridor passing through cities such as Dolisie, Nkayi, Kinkala, Oyo, Owando …

The experts traveled through these main cities to identify project leaders and small entrepreneurs. They were the ones who carried out the first phase of selection, including a thousand business plan files, then the two hundred best simplified business plans whose list has just been made public.

For the Minister of SMEs, Crafts and the Informal Sector, Yvonne Adélaïde Mougany, the main objective is to stimulate an entrepreneurial culture among young people and women. “Our ambition is that at the end of this passage through these molds of international good practice, be reinforced against the background of a flourishing of private initiative, the symbiosis of entrepreneurial and managerial culture in Congolese society. In this way, new generations of professional and model entrepreneurs will emerge with a strong training capacity, ”she said.