THE ROLE OF SMALL SCALE INDUSTRY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF NIGERIA ECONOMY
PREFACE
Nigeria is presently one of the under developed countries of the world and to change the situation, a lot need to be done in all sectors of her economy, particularly the industrial sector. To develop the industrial sector, small-scale enterprise comes under a special focus because they dominate a large portion of Nigeria’s industrial sector. These small-scale enterprises play a significant role in economic development in Nigeria, setting it on the path towards development of self-reliance.
It is in recognition of the importance of these small-scale industries that this project is written to examine what small-scale industry really are, to look at their contribution to the Nigeria economy as well as problems they face in carrying out their activities with a view to making useful suggestions on the way to curtail these problems.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.0 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Small-scale industries have been in existence since time immemorial. They are earliest form of business that the early men use to get their needs, basically food, cloths and shelter. They exchanged what they had for what they wanted. It was latter on that large-scale business started to emerge and they are now found in a large number, in every country of the world.
However, small-scale industries still form a dormant part of business enterprises particularly in developing nations, which includes Nigeria. In recent years, since the adoption of the economic reforms program in Nigeria (1986), there have been a device switch of emphasis from the grandiose capital intensive large-scale industrial project to small and medium scale enterprises linkages for rapid sustainable industrial development based on the philosophy of input substitution. Small-scale industry is an industry whole total project cost excluding cost of land but including working capital above #1million but does not exceed #10million. However, in most developed countries and the newly industrializing countries of the world, Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) are generally defined on the basis of number of people employed to take account of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) labour intensive characteristics At independent in 1966, Nigeria economy was mainly agrarians industry plays a vital role in economic development in fact, it provided the brightest hope for generating sustained growth employment improved spinning and investment.
