Akwa Ibom State Partners Foreign Investors to Boost Agribusiness
The Akwa Ibom State Government has partnered with the British African Business Alliance Limited and PJ-IC International to provide Agric processing plants and affordable medium-density housing schemes for the state’s civil servants.
This initiative was part of the resolution reached at a meeting between the state Government and the two foreign investors held at the Government House in Uyo.
It was gathered that the strategic management will also promote the fortunes of farmers in the state with the establishment of processing lines as standby off-takers of farm produce.
The state Governor, Udom Emmanuel, assured them that despite the few months remaining in his administration, he would continue to urge multinationals to explore the vast Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) opportunities and relatively business-friendly atmosphere in the state.
The meeting, which was a follow-up to the governor’s recent interaction with investors during the last London Summit on “Achieving Global Peace Through Trade,” at Westminster in the UK, afforded British-African Business Alliance Limited the opportunity to explore investment windows in the areas of human capacity development, real estate, and power generation, while PJ-IC International looked into gas cylinder production and agricultural processing lines.
The Governor also stated his willingness to work with the companies to expedite the delivery of the housing scheme, emphasizing the importance of keeping the cost within the reach of civil servants to ensure that the targeted beneficiaries are not priced out, thus defeating the purpose.
He said, “On the low-cost housing, there’s a scheme we’ve designed, and we already have in the coffers (prepaid) N5 billion set aside to deliver some medium-density housing of about 675 units.We’ve tried something before, but at the end of it all, we realized the cost was much higher than the capacity of the 10-15-year mortgage that the public servants could finance, so the houses ended up being acquired by businessmen who could afford much more, who then leased them out to the civil servants at a cost that swallowed up all their earnings.”
Meanwhile, the Governor decried the situation where farmers are compelled to sell off their harvest at prices too low for business due to the perishable nature of farm produce and, therefore, expressed readiness to partner with PJ-IC International for a farm produce processing line.
He stated that the partnership would make farming a lucrative business with a vast value chain where farmers have ready off-takers at acceptable prices, assuring the investors of the fertility of Akwa Ibom soil to produce enough to feed the factories.
Earlier, the CEO of British African Business Alliance Limited, David Smith, expressed delight on his second visit to Nigeria, saying the visit was a follow-up to the discussion with the Governor on harnessing the abundant gas deposits in the state to generate electricity.
He assured the Governor that human capacity would be built through vocational education and the provision of low-cost housing by his company, and that his company was willing to ship a ready-made gas plant into the state.
Smith said the investment-friendly atmosphere of the state administration has attracted other partners with specialties in waste recycling and power generation to invest in the state, promising that the company will arrive soon.
Agro Nigeria
