The Government of Osun State in southwest Nigeria has reiterated its commitment to boosting micro, small and medium-scale enterprises, stressing their impact on economic growth.
The State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Reverend ‘Bunmi Jenyo, disclosed this at the weekend while speaking with journalists in Osogbo, the state capital.
Jenyo said the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke understood the importance of small businesses to the industrial and commercial development of the state, hence its focus on the sector.
“One of the assignments given to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry was for it to try and revive the economy of the state. The Ministry was to assist the government to design a policy to boost the industrial development of the state.
In pursuing that objective, we developed a policy and gave it to the Governor, and that has been our bible which we have been following ever since.
In 2024, we organized the first Osun Industrial Summit to showcase the industrial potential of the state, and that summit ended with about twenty companies showing interest in establishing industries in Osun State.
Recently, on the 28th of May, we signed an MoU with a company called Smart City that guaranteed that the first take-off of its company would provide employment for one hundred thousand people, a number which the company promised would rise to five hundred thousand eventually,” he said.
According to the commissioner, the Osun State Government is particularly interested in promoting clusters of industries and agro-processing units, in line with the comparative advantage of the state.
He explained that Governor Adeleke’s adminstration aims to achieve this by providing start-up capital and an enabling environment for the businesses to thrive, adding that the start-up capital for the businesses would be jointly provided by both the state government and the federal government through a counterpart funding arrangement.
“There’s a soft loan facility that will be unfolded soon. It’s a partnership between the Osun State Government and Bank of Industry (BoI), where the state government would provide 750 million naira and BoI would provide another 750 million naira for small businesses.
The government has also developed some industrial estates. We have one at Erin-Osun, where they make garri. The estate cannot accommodate big industries, but it can house a good number of small businesses. It will serve as anchor for our economic growth,” he said.
Jenyo also disclosed that as part of the Osun State Government’s drive to revive trade and commerce within its territory, cocoa planting and processing—which used to have a pride of place in the state—would henceforth be given the attention they deserve.