By Nangamso Mabindla
31 October 2007

SMALL, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) that are supported by the City set the recent Business Expo alight by walking away with three awards, including best stand.

Organised by the city's business and education institutions and held in East London, the objective behind the exhibition is to create a platform for companies to show their products while learning how to be better at doing business.

Buffalo City was one of the supporters of the annual exhibition, to which it took five SMMEs.

"These SMMEs were mainly made up of women-led businesses," said the City's general manager for local economic development, Noludwe Ncokazi. This was in line with the City's goal of empowering women-led businesses in the 2007/2008 financial year.

Ncokazi said that these SMMEs offered different services, ranging from construction to tourism, manufacturing and organic farming.

"Two of our SMMEs received awards [for participating] and the organic farming stand that we sponsored won the award for the best stand at the expo. We are proud of these achievements."

She said that the farming stand was a collaboration of co-operatives that had won the City's annual Mdantsane Urban Agriculture competition earlier this year.

"We are really proud of our SMMEs and happy that we supported them and gave them a chance to showcase their products and talents at the expo. [It] was not only about SMMEs exhibiting, but was also very informative as there were workshops where people learned about business."

Looking ahead to next year's event, Ncokazi called on small businesses that were interested in taking part to contact the City's SMME desk on 043 705 1151.