The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) says it has secured approval from the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to register 2,000 businesses with a 50 per cent discount in the first quarter of 2023.

Shehu Abdulkadir, the managing director of the Abuja Enterprise Agency (AEA), disclosed this at the grand finale of the 2022 Ugwumba Enterprise Challenge (UEC) in Abuja.

Mr Abdulkadir also said all the participants of the UEC would be given an extra 25 per cent discount in addition to CAC’s 50 per cent discount to facilitate their business registration in 2023.

He said the discounts would go a long way to boost interest in business registration for young people and encourage youths to embrace entrepreneurship.

“The informal sector in the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) sub-sector is something that has been a problem, and in trying to address this challenge and to bring all SMEs into the sector, we approached CAC,” said Mr Abdulkadir. “We asked CAC to give us some discount toward facilitating the formalisation of SMEs in Nigeria, and we are privileged to say that we got an approval of 50 per cent discount.”

In the first quarter of 2023, Mr Abdulkadir revealed that “we are going to roll it out, so we are to register 2,000 businesses within the first quarter of next year” and “we will be giving an additional discount to all the participants of the UEC, an additional 25 per cent from what the CAC has given them.”

Mr Abdulkadir said the discount was also a strategy to formalise SMEs in Nigeria and to boost patronage for the AEA FCT One-Stop-Shop for SMEs.

“As an SME, you don’t have to go to CAC to register your business. It can be registered within 24 hours in the one-stop shop. If you need your permit from the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) or any licence from NAFDAC, you can acquire it from the one-stop shop,” he explained. 

(NAN)