Building a Unified SME Support Architecture for Mauritius

Mauritius has spent the last decade building more and more tools to support SMEs: grants, advisory services, training programmes, export promotion, innovation funding, tax incentives. On paper, it looks rich. But if you talk to entrepreneurs, you hear a different story: too many doors, too many forms, conflicting advice, overlapping schemes, and very little sense of a single journey from “idea” to “competitive, growing business”.

That gap is not about goodwill. It is about architecture.

In this article, I want to argue that Mauritius now needs a unified SME support architecture: a single, coherent way of organising how public institutions, private partners and financial actors work together around SMEs. Not more schemes, but more alignment.

I will ground this in what exists in Mauritius today, and in how other countries have already made this shift.

Over the last decade, several key institutions have been tasked with supporting SMEs:

• SME Mauritius Ltd, created in 2017 as a government-owned entity, with a mandate to “empower and enhance the competitiveness of SMEs through advisory and support programs.”

• The Development Bank of Mauritius (DBM) and the Industrial Finance Corporation of Mauritius (IFCM), providing concessional loans and investment support.

• The Economic Development Board (EDB), which manages investment and sector schemes, and hosts various grant and support programmes, including a business schemes portal.

• The Human Resource Development Council (HRDC), with levy-grant mechanisms for training that SMEs can access.

• The Mauritius Research and Innovation Council (MRIC), with innovation and technology adoption schemes.

• Sector bodies such as FAREI (agriculture), NWEC, chambers and business associations that also run SME-facing programmes.

SME Mauritius alone administers multiple grant schemes targeting internal capabilities, technology adoption, marketing, inclusiveness, and more, typically covering 80% of approved project costs while the entrepreneur contributes 20%. Using this similar approach, on 27th November 2025, an additional six new grant schemes were launched by the Minister of Industry, SMEs, and Cooperatives in Mauritius in a bid to provide enhanced support to cooperative societies. A  “Schemes and Incentives” handbook from the Ministry of Finance catalogues dozens of business support measures across SME Mauritius, DBM, ISP, HRDC and others, each with its own eligibility criteria, application forms, contact points, and monitoring requirements.

In parallel, the 10-Year SME Master Plan itself highlighted the need to map existing SME support institutions and recognised fragmentation as a problem that reduced policy impact.

The result is familiar to anyone who has tried to “navigate the system”:

• An SME might approach SME Mauritius for a productivity grant, DBM for a loan, HRDC for training refund, MRIC for an innovation voucher, and EDB for export support.

• Each institution does its own diagnostic, collects its own documents and tracks its own indicators.

• No one actor sees the full picture of where this SME started, what support it has already received and whether anything actually changed in terms of productivity, employment, or exports.

Mauritius has many instruments. What it lacks is a single, integrated path that ties them together.

How fragmentation quietly kills impact

Fragmentation does not announce itself loudly, but it quietly shapes how the entire SME ecosystem performs. You see it in small, everyday moments. An entrepreneur tries to seek support but is unsure where to begin. The Master Plan already noted low awareness of SME institutions, and when support sits across many actors, the path becomes even more confusing. For very small or first-generation entrepreneurs, a single unclear experience is often enough to turn them back.

The challenge grows once they enter the system. Many SMEs end up repeating the same story about their business model, cash flow pressures, and skills gaps to different officers across different agencies, each with its own forms, assessments, and follow-ups. It is tiring on both sides and often pushes businesses to chase whichever support looks easiest instead of following a structured upgrading path.

The advice they receive is not always aligned either. One institution encourages expansion into exports. Another focuses on job creation. Another stresses the need for automation and process improvements. None of these priorities are wrong, but without a shared roadmap, the SME is pulled in several directions at once and rarely has the capacity to execute them properly.

Public spending also absorbs the cost of this fragmentation. Mauritius operates several grants that tackle similar issues, each with its own administrative requirements. This raises delivery costs and makes it difficult to evaluate whether the programmes collectively boost productivity.

Beneath all this lies a fundamental data problem. Information is stored in separate systems, so the country lacks a unified view of the SME population, the support they receive and how their performance changes over time. Studies on green finance, access to finance, and productivity consistently highlight this data gap as a major barrier to smarter policy.

The impact shows up in the long-term trajectory of the sector. SME contribution to GDP and employment has remained largely unchanged, and the base is still concentrated in low-productivity activities. Fragmentation is not the sole cause, but it makes any coordinated push toward higher-value growth far harder to achieve.

What a unified SME support architecture actually looks like

A unified architecture is not about building a super agency. It is about creating a common way of working around SMEs, no matter which institution is involved. In practice, it rests on five elements.

1. One visible entry point
Entrepreneurs should always know where to start. Countries like Singapore and Rwanda show how this works: a single front door for advice, registration and guidance, even though many agencies still operate behind the scenes. The SME sees one front office, not a maze.

2. A shared SME identifier and case file
Every SME that enters the system should carry a common identifier linked to basic registration and tax data, along with a shared case file that records diagnostics and support over time. This does not mean sharing sensitive information. It simply creates a minimal dataset that lets institutions coordinate instead of repeating work.

3. A standard diagnostic and growth pathway
Rather than each agency using its own template, the country adopts a national diagnostic that covers finance, skills, digital readiness, management, and markets. SMEs are placed into clear development stages, and each stage has an agreed support pathway. Once this diagnostic is done, every institution works from the same baseline.

4. Coordinated financing and incentives
Grants, loans, guarantees, innovation funding and tax measures should function as parts of a single finance ladder. Early-stage firms rely more on grants and coaching. As they stabilize and grow, the mix shifts toward blended finance and commercial instruments. Agencies still keep their mandates, but their tools align around the same journey.

5. A national SME competitiveness scorecard
A unified system needs a unified way to track progress. A national scorecard would measure productivity, exports, digital and AI readiness, innovation, and green transition indicators. It would be reported annually and grounded in the shared case files, giving policymakers the evidence they need to adjust programs and close gaps.

What other countries did when they unified support

Mauritius is not starting from scratch. Several countries have already reorganised their SME and enterprise support systems, and their experiences point to a common pattern.

Singapore offers one of the clearest examples. In 2018, the government merged SPRING Singapore, which built SME capabilities, with International Enterprise Singapore, which handled exports. The result was Enterprise Singapore, a single organisation that helps firms upgrade, innovate and expand abroad through one front door. Its SME Centres now guide tens of thousands of businesses through a shared framework that links capability building with market growth.

Rwanda took a broader approach with the Rwanda Development Board. It brought investment promotion, business registration, tourism, export development and SME capacity building into one institution under the Office of the President. The one-stop centre at RDB gives entrepreneurs and investors a unified interface for everything from licensing to aftercare, instead of sending them through different ministries.

Finland followed a similar logic. Tekes, the innovation funding agency, and Finpro, responsible for export promotion and investment attraction, were merged into Business Finland. Companies seeking innovation grants, export support or investment services now follow a single service path. Evaluations show strong results, including sizeable gains in exports and turnover among supported SMEs.

Across all three cases, the pattern is the same. Countries kept different mandates in place but aligned them within one coordinated architecture, with a visible entry point and a unified journey for the firms they serve.

What a unified architecture would unlock for Mauritius

A unified SME support architecture would make the journey far simpler for entrepreneurs. Instead of knocking on several doors, an SME would start at one recognised entry point, go through one structured diagnostic and receive one coordinated roadmap. The same pathway would then guide them through grants, training, finance and export support in sequence, which matters most for micro, youth and women-led enterprises that have the least time and capacity to keep searching and reapplying. Public money would also work harder. Shared diagnostics, case files and KPIs would show which combinations of support actually raise productivity, which schemes are popular but underperform, and where programmes overlap. This makes it possible to shift funds towards what delivers results and retire what does not.

At the same time, SME policy would line up more clearly with industrial and green transition goals. The country’s industrial strategy and emerging green finance agenda both expect SMEs to upgrade, digitise and decarbonise, yet many struggle to access capital and support. A unified architecture would allow Mauritius to build green and digital milestones directly into the SME growth pathway, so that capability upgrading and sustainability move together.

Finally, a shared SME dataset and a national competitiveness scorecard would give policymakers the evidence they currently lack. They could see whether supported firms are more productive or more likely to export after three years, which sectors are upgrading fastest and where gaps persist by region, gender or firm size. This is what turns SME support from a collection of schemes into a genuine, data-driven strategy.

A realistic 24-month roadmap

Mauritius does not need to transform the system overnight. The shift can happen in clear phases.

Phase 1: Governance and mapping (0 to 6 months)
Begin by setting up a high-level SME Steering Committee with all key institutions at the table. Map every scheme and incentive into a live digital inventory so the country has a single view of what exists and who owns it. Agree on a minimal shared SME dataset and a common identifier so agencies can finally speak the same language.

Phase 2: Front door and diagnostic (6 to 12 months)
Next, design a national diagnostic tool and pilot it with priority segments. At the same time, establish a visible front door for SMEs, building on SME Mauritius’ footprint. Train frontline officers across institutions so the diagnostic becomes the common starting point and referrals follow the same pathway.

Phase 3: Integrated pathways and scorecard (12 to 24 months)
With the diagnostic in place, align grants, loans, training refunds and innovation support into a few standardised pathways linked to SME stages. Build the national competitiveness scorecard and publish the first annual report. Use this evidence to consolidate underused or overlapping schemes and redirect resources to what works.

Digital portals, e-case management and AI-assisted triage can come later. The real change is organisational and strategic, not technological.

7. The strategic choice in front of Mauritius

The SME Master Plan made one thing clear: SMEs are meant to drive national transformation, not simply serve as a social safety net. Yet despite new schemes and institutions, the core indicators have barely shifted.

The real decision now is not about launching more programmes. It is about whether Mauritius is ready to organise SME support as one coherent system. A unified architecture will not fix everything, but it offers three essential advantages: a clear and trusted path for entrepreneurs, a disciplined and data-driven use of public funds, and a platform that ties SME support directly to the country’s industrial, digital and green ambitions.

That is the shift the next decade demands.