Maputo — The Mozambican Association of Micro, Small and Medium Companies (AMPME) will engage its nearly 600 affiliated companies across the country in capacity building programmes, intended to improve local content and other tools for better quality control of their products.
In order to achieve these goals, APME, and the African Management Service Company (AMSCO), a Pan-African advisory services body, and the technical assistance agency Nunisa, signed on Tuesday in Maputo a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a two year life span.
The memorandum was signed by the APME chairperson, Feito Tudo Male, and the representatives of AMSCO and Nunisa, Helia Nsthandoca and Joao Sixpence respectively.
Under the MoU, AMSCO and Nunisa will assist the micro, small and medium companies in areas such as business governance, leadership, management and operations. The partnership will focus on organisational development, and joint project elaboration for business promotion, but will also produce evidence which will assist AMPME with scientific based decision making.
Feito Tudo Male, said the association, founded in 2015, consists of 600 micro, small and medium companies. He said they "have a pivotal role for the country's economy. Recent studies indicate that they represent about 98 per cent of the Mozambican companies employing a great majority of citizens who contribute about 75 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product".
Despite efforts to improve the business environment, Male pointed out that these companies have been facing a wide range of challenges in order to become robust, representative and inclusive.
With the memorandum, he believes conditions have been created for the strengthening of APME's intellectual and institutional capacity, for the promotion of capacity building and other initiatives which will boost development.
AMSCO representative, Helia Nsthandoca, said the institutional capacity building will, among other issues, assist the companies in building standard market practices, which are currently diverse, thus hampering access to business opportunities and finance.
