Local entrepreneurs lack skill to manage their money

General Manager of the Centre for Enterprise Development Inc, CED Felix Lewis believes that one of the main reasons why entrepreneurs frequent financial lending agencies is because they lack the skill to manage their money.

In an interview with the Searchlight Newspaper, Lewis said that many of these entrepreneurs are medium to small businesses and that need to be trained in knowing how to handle their cash flow. {{more}}

Lewis said that this was why the CED had a focused approach towards helping the entrepreneurial sector, especially through training such as the recently concluded Export Preparedness Workshop for Small Businesses.

The General Manager pointed out that 30 participants were involved in phase one of the Export Preparedness workshop, which ran from October 10-11 which was in an effort to build the capacity of small business.

He pointed out that training would be conducted in five phases and that other sessions would be organised in areas such as marketing, financing, the use of technology and strategic alliances so that entrepreneurs could boost their businesses.

Lewis said that often times the government is critiscied for not caring about small businesses and pointed out that it was because of the government constantly seeking opportunities to acquire training and funding from international agencies why many entrepreneurs have so far received training.

The capacity building workshops are being organised by the Caribbean Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (CASME) in partnership with the Centre for Enterprise Development (CED) through funding from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, OAS.

Participants of the workshop have been quoted as saying that the sessions have been helpful to them knowing how they could improve their business and that they would continue in the other upcoming four phases.

Lewis acknowledged that without small businesses most economies around the world would collapse. He pointed out that the Japanese sector had some 90 per cent of small to medium business, the American domain was made up of some 87 per cent, while the Caribbean was made up of some 85 per cent.