COPPERBELT Minister Mwenya Musenge has urged local entrepreneurs to apply world class systems to their goods and services to enhance quality productivity.

Mr Musenge said local entrepreneurs should ensure their products and services competed on the global market favourably.

He said this in a speech read on his behalf by Copperbelt Permanent Secretary Stanford Msichili at the Training of Micro, Small and Medium Entrepreneurs (MSMEs) for the Law Growth Nexus II project in Kitwe yesterday.

The minister said there were little benefits to ordinary people, especially MSMEs despite the country registering economic growth in recent times.

He said lack of employment opportunities had persisted despite Government putting in place a number of policy interventions whose strategies were aimed at creating jobs.

The policy interventions include the National Employment and Labour Market Policy, National Youth Policy and the Sixth National Development Plan.

"The Law Growth Nexus II project will create an enabling environment conducive for decent job creation and development of MSMEs. We see the private sector and specifically the growth-oriented MSMEs holding significantly greater job creation potential," he said.

Mr Musenge appealed to MSMEs to improve their credit culture as some financial institutions were now reluctant to lend money to them.

The Law Growth Nexus II Project National Coordinator Namucana Musiwa said the project sought to enhance policy environments for MSME development in Kenya and Zambia.

She said the International Labour Office was working with other partners to build capacity among the MSMEs.