Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and Sustainable Economic Development in Nigeria

Sustainable economic growth and development may practically be impossible if the indices of growth are not given the required attention that will translate into an enviable sustainability of the fabrics of growth in Nigeria. This has become important given the decline in micro, small and medium enterprise subsector in Nigeria. The essence of this research is thus, to empirically examine the impact of micro, small and medium enterprises on sustainable economic development in Nigeria. The study covered from 2000 to 2020 and annual time series data were sourced from the CBN Statistical Bulletin, World Development Indicator (WDI) and National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The co-integration and ECM frameworks were used. The results showed that the output of micro, small and medium enterprises has a significant and positive impact on the Per Capita Income (PCY), the exchange rate (EXR) has a significant and positive impact on the micro, small and medium enterprises and Prime Lending Rate (PLR) has a negative and insignificant impact on the micro, small and medium enterprises. Thus, from the results, it was recommended, amongst others, the clustering of micro, small and medium enterprises with similar products, to further improve their output and development process vis-a-vis the growth and development of Nigeria.