The National Bureau of Statistics ( NBS) has disclosed that 31.7 per cent of youths in Nigeria lack access to bank loans to finance their businesses due to high interest rates.
The bureau said this in its National Youth Survey for 2020, obtained from its website in Abuja.
The report is a collaborative effort between the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development and the NBS.
According to the report, the stringent bank policies, government policies and other measures adopted by banking institutions make it difficult for youths to finance their businesses through bank loans.
Giving a breakdown of the result from the survey, the NBS said that stringent bank policies accounted for 24.8 per cent youths not having access to bank loans, 7.3 per cent attributed their challenges to government policies while 13.2 per cent of the youths gave other reasons.
At zonal level, youths from South-South 45.7 percent and South West 35.5 percent could not access bank loan due to high rate of interest rate; while youths from North-West 54.5 percent and North-Central 33.8 percent could not access bank loans due to stringent policies.
“Youths from South-South 15.7 per cent and North-East 13.3 per cent could not access bank loans due to government policies.”
It, however, said that for those that had access to bank loans, nationally, 55.1 perbcent female youths had access than their male counterparts, put at 44.9 per cent.
Analysing major challenges facing youths in businesses, the report said that the survey indicated different types of challenges faced by youths in their business enterprises.
According to it, nationally, 86.1 per cent of youths faced the challenge of access to fund to finance their businesses, while 4.9 per cent faced the challenge of inconsistency in government policies.
It said that another 4.6 per cent faced the challenges of obsolete equipment while three per cent faced the challenges of lack of proper training in relation to their businesses.
“At zonal level, most youths from all the zones reported the challenge of financing their businesses; youths from South-West (100 percent) top the list followed by North-East at 93.6 percent, while youths from South-East (78.1 per cent) were least.
“However, youths from North-Central (9.2 percent) faced the challenge of obsolete equipment for their businesses followed by youth from South-East (3.5 percent).
“Meanwhile, youths from South- East (10 percent) reported inconsistencies in government policies as a major challenge affecting their businesses.”
For sources of business funding, the survey reported that youths across the six geo-political zones source for funds to set up their businesses enterprises through personal savings, loans, family sources, cooperative/Esusu, grants and other sources.
It said that nationally, 34.5 perbcent of youths sourced fund through government grants to set up their business enterprises, while 29.7 per cent of youths used their personal savings.
The report added that 15.1 per cent sourced funds through cooperative thrift and 2.4 per cent of the youth obtained loan to start up their business enterprises.
It added that across the six geo-political zones, more female youths (65.4 per cent) operated business enterprises than their male counterpart.
For business registration, the result indicated that only 8.9 percent of youths registered business enterprises across the six geo-political zones.
The survey is a follow up on the National Baseline Youth Survey 2012 version, as the NBS attempts to fulfil its mandate of providing credible and comprehensive statistics on all levels of the country.
The report also enhances the ability of policy makers and other stakeholders to improve the efficacy of policies they put forward through the use of evidence-based data.
