The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Applications for the Small Business Development Centre's (SBDC) new $5,000 grant have more than doubled compared to the 400 unveiled by the Prime Minister on Sunday, it was revealed yesterday.

Davinia Grant, the SBDC's executive director, addressing a Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) webinar, said the number of applications submitted by entrepreneurs and small micro firms now stands at 870.

"We're over 800 applications, actually at 870 applications, which is significant," she said. "We only had $500,000 then in the pot for 870 applications. So, fortunately, the Government has allowed us to expand that to $1m. Round two of our standalone grant programme will be released or opened up for applications next week, Thursday, November 19.”

Touting how the SBDC has facilitated more more than $50m in financing to 962 clients since it was created, Ms Grant said these efforts have boosted nine islands and some 38 industries. We have a very wide reach in many dimensions," she added.

Waste management was the sector receiving the lowest percentage of funding at 0.7 percent, while the food and beverage industry gained nearly 15 percent of the more than $50m in micro, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) financing.

"Fishing and farming (at 6.2 percent) is surprisingly larger than the tourism aspect (at 1.7 percent of total funds) here," Ms Grant said, "and I think some of that has to do with the fact that a number of these businesses were funded in this year. Given what was going on during the pandemic it would have presented some difficulty for a number of the tourism business plans or businesses to be funded.

"When you look at some of the data during the pandemic only 22 percent of our clients, meaning the employees of our clients, were furloughed or terminated...... Pretty much the lion’s share, 76 percent, were able to be retained during this period of time.”

Ms Grant said entrepreneurs requires two sets of approvals to access funding via the SBDC. The first involved getting the SBDC's approval to underwrite the financing with a government guarantee, and the second required the actual lending institution to release the funds.

"The Government this year has given the Access Accelerator [SBDC] a budget of $55.8m to disburse through the centre to businesses throughout the islands. If you look at what we did from inception to now it was about just under $53m, but that was over a span of two years. Now we’re saying $55m in one year.

“So $25m of that $55m is for what I’m going to call business continuity 2.0. We’re calling it our economic recovery programme, and so this $25m we want to target at specific industries for Bahamian businesses to get the capital injection they need to be able to recover smarter, more strategically, and in areas that we feel can bring a boost to everybody.

"There's also $15m specifically for companies who need assistance to continue to survive during this period of time. There's substantial resources available - a total of almost $40m of the $55m - specifically for this initiative.

"Making sure Bahamians are part of the shared economy is another huge focus, information and communications technology. We want to increase the productivity of a lot of the small businesses, and technology is a big part of that.”