CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background of the Study

In recent times, the fortune of small scale business enterprises attracted the government world wide and this has been the focus of general interest and research, especially in developing countries due to the importance of small scale business enterprises. Their importance cannot be over emphasized as they contribute a whole virile vehicle for the generation of vast   outputs and job creation. They also act as catalyst for restructuring and diversifying the production base of the economy of the state and the country   at large and for the industrial economy take off and growth of such economy.

Small scale business enterprises in their widest sense imply the urgent response to the challenges faced by the state   which operate under a developing country (Nigeria). Small Scale businesses should be practiced with due regards to the importance of available local raw materials in its environs because the challenges facing small and medium scale businesses are enormous.

The importance of small scale business enterprises to the economics development of any state, have been widely acknowledged or acclaimed. They are considered as stimulant to private ownership and entrepreneurial skills, generate employments, promote Industrial dispersal and rural –urban migration.

Clive Carpenter (2001), said that across the world, small businesses are crucial for economic growth, poverty alleviation and wealth creation, Uayatudeen (2001) said that across the world, small businesses have such a crucial role to play in the development of an economy and that cannot be ignored. According to William and David, most firms and small scale businesses are compared with companies that economist have concentrated on large scale enterprises. The leading text books in economics have titled discussions on small scale business or entrepreneur.

The partial combinations of small scale businesses to the development of Akwa Ibom State economy are creation of wealth, poverty eradication and employment generation. However, small and medium scale businesses are bedeviled by numerous challenges which have hampered its contribution to national development. To this end government has instituted various programs to  address the  challenges and constraints facing small and medium scale businesses growth. The programs and institutions include:

1.    Setting up and funding of industrial estates
2. Establishment of National Directorate of Employment (NDE)
3. Establishment of the Nigeria bank of commerce and Industry (NBC), the national economic re-construction fund (NERFUND) the Nigeria Industry Bank (NIDB) which has merged into one agency in the bank industry, the world assisted small scale enterprises loan scheme (SNEX), the Nigeria Export and Import Bank (NEXIN) etc.
4. Setting up a small and medium scale enterprises development agency of Nigeria (SWEDAN) an agency which coordinates development in small business sector.

Unfortunately all these formal credit schemes have not been able to adequately address the fundamental problems which have constrained small scale enterprises access to credit and any other enterprises establishing a small and medium scale industry requires capital to take off, survive, and eventually expand.

In Akwa Ibom State, small and medium scale manufacturing, engage in leather making, poultry making, wood carving. The smaller industries are often organized in the craft guides involving particular families who pass the skill from generation to generation.

Small scale business enterprises forms the bedrock of the economic growth of every state, no state achieves a viable economic growth and development without the establishment of small scale business firms, they have always been on the forefront of development strategies. Akwa Ibom State’s quests for development  must  be hinged on industriali8zaitovn. This is  because of the great role industries play in terms of production  activities, employment generations and the overall improvement in the quality of life small business firms are seen as veritable instruments for the industrial development Akwa Ibom  State. industrial development involves the development of a technical arrangement that moves an economy from one traditional method of product to  a more  complex system of mass manufacture of a variety of goods and services involving technology and management techniques (KASIMU 1998) it enable the state to utilize fully its factor endowments and depend less on the external factors for its growth and sustenance.

Mohammed (2009) opines that small scale business provides employment and earning opportunities which contribute to the economic growth and increase in the standard of living of the populace Orgi (2008) views it  as the engine  of development. The Nigerian industrial promotion council (NIPC) (2000:39) confirms this by stating that the advert of small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria was necessitated by the need to stimulate the establishment and growth of industries in order to launch the  country’s industrial development.

Small scale business provides financial opportunity and a chance to develop wealth. It is a place where creative  motivated individuals  can use their talents and expertise  to the fullest, because  it provides satisfying career’s and job opportunities it is also  the back bone of the economy of the world. Every bid business starts as  a small business and it started with an entrepreneurs (small business  who at first earns little money or no profit. it was the new  ideas that brought  about the SIBA group of companies, Ikot Ekpene, IBOK BROTHERS, Ikot  Ekpene and many other companies in the state. untried ideas becomes annulations that become concepts that changed the business world.