She said that the bank formally applied for issuing its operating license from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which could soon be approved.
The DBN was conceived in 2014 by the Goodluck Jonathan administration, but suffered a delayed take-off for various reasons.
However, President Muhammadu Buhari administration which inherited the project promised to resolve all outstanding issues, even when he was appointed in 2017 as the take-off date.
The DBN will have access to $ 1.3 billion (N396.5 billion), jointly by the World Bank (WB), KfW (German Development Bank), African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Agence Francaise de Development (the French Agency for Development ). The Bank is also finalizing an agreement with the European Investment Bank (EIB).
In order to provide an explanation, Mrs. Adeosun convinced that the business DBN will in no way lead to the elimination of the Bank of Industry (BOI), Bank of Agriculture (BOA) or any other existing development banks.
"Business DBN is clearly different from other development banks because it focused on supporting small businesses as defined by size, rather than by sector. The DBN will provide loans to all sectors of the economy, including manufacturing, services and other industries currently do not serve existing development banks and thereby filling an important gap in the provision of finance to MSMEs.
"Like many banks, DBN will borrow many microfinance banks to lend to medium to long-term loans to SMEs. The SMEs contribute about 48.47 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Nigeria, or have access to only about 5 percent of active deposit money banks (Gehrke), "she explained.
The minister added that the influx of additional capital in the DBN will reduce borrowing rates and longer loan term of office will provide the necessary flexibility in the management of cash flows, giving businesses the opportunity to make improvements and to acquire capital equipment or inventory.
"As the economy diversification, growth of MSME sector will have a positive impact on the economy through job creation, wealth creation and economic growth," she added.
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