Small Businesses Say Reforms Urgent

Blake Schmidt January 11, 2008

The Nicaraguan Council of Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (CONIMIPYME) is calling on the National Assembly to expedite a package of proposals that would grant greater access to credit and guarantee a more competitive business climate for small businesses.

The package of proposals, which is in theNational Assembly, calls for the creation of a state institution that would regulate competition and would restructure the country’s credit system to stimulate the financing of small business growth.

CONIMIPYME is working with the Superior Council of Private Businesses (COSEP), the country’s main business chamber, to streamline the large amount of small-business reform proposals in the Assembly, the council’s director Giberto Alcócer said in a statement released this month to outline the council’s legislative agenda for 2008.

Alcócer said the highly anticipated laws would “allow businesses to develop competitively, to generate more employment and contribute to poverty reduction.”

The reforms would also obligate the state to provide micro, small and medium-sized businesses, which account for 99% of Nicaraguan businesses, with more access to new technologies, to better business development and training services, to better market information, and to cut red tape.

Alcócer said the proposals have support in the Assembly’s Economics Commission, and he is now asking the whole National Assembly to approve the legislation within the coming months.

“Our businesses should prepare themselves to compete with competitive market advantages, if we want the Central American Free-Trade Agreement (CAFTA) and the European Association Agreement to benefit us.”