Eight countries are expected to participate in the fifth Agro-food and Plastprintpack Nigeria 2019, aimed at providing solutions to the challenging needs of the entire agricultural value chain.
Mr Akin Alabi, the Managing Partner, Corporate Farmers International, made this known in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.
The countries to participate in the event scheduled to hold from March 26 to March 28 in Lagos are Belarus, China, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Turkey.
The statement quoted Alabi as saying that Nigeria was fast becoming Africa’s largest food market, according to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
“Nigeria invests heavily in its food production increasing import of food processing and packaging machinery by 15 per cent in 2017, amounting to about 262 million Euros.
“This amount makes Nigeria the second largest importer of packaging technologies in sub-Saharan Africa, while imports for packaging technologies increased by 34 per cent in 2018.
“This double digit growth in 2017 and 2018, according to the German Engineering Federation, and the Federal Government’s forecasts will also cause a double-digit growth in 2019,” he said.
Alabi said that the event would comprise three sub-brands; Agro-Tech Nigeria, Food and Beverage Tech Nigeria, and Food and Hospitality Nigeria.
“Agro-Nigeria has been organised by Fairtrade Messe and DLG German Agricultural Society since 2015, focusing on crop and animal production, agricultural engineering and bio-energy.”
