Effect of Government Policies on the Performance of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Imo State

Abstract

The study focused on the effect of government policies on the performance of small and medium scale enterprises in Imo State. The specific objectives of the study were to: assess the effect of tax policy, determine the effect of government credit policy, and ascertain the effect of land border closure policy on the growth of small and medium scale enterprise in Imo State. The study was adopted survey research design, primary sources of data with the aid of a well-structured questionnaire that was distributed to the owners and staff of registered small and medium scale enterprises in Imo State. The population of the study consisted of nine (9) Small and Medium Scales enterprises and 784 respondents selected from the 27 Local Government Areas in Imo State. A sample size of 265 which was determined using Taro Yamene’s formula, Bowley’s formula and simple random sampling technique were also adopted for obtaining information from group and sub-group while the data were analyzed and presented using descriptive statistic such as simple percentage, frequency and means while the hypotheses were tested using multiples regression. The result of the findings revealed that tax, government credit and land border closure policies all significantly influenced the growth of SMEs in Imo State. The study therefore concludes that government policies affect on the performance of small and medium scale enterprise in Imo State. The study further recommended tax incentives should be incorporated in the State tax policy, government credit policy should be made more accessible to SMEs so as to improve accessible to much needed fund for their operations and land border closure policy should be made to encourage local consumption and patronage of SMEs.

Keywords

References