The Bank of Industry (BoI) has charged local manufacturers in the country to produce to meet international best practices, noting that this is the way to become competitive and attractive at the global market place.
The acting Managing Director, BOI, Waheed Olagunju, while speaking during a tour of a livestock farming value chain infrastructure cluster by Project Fix, in Lagos, explained that Nigeria has the capacity to meet all its food needs and even export to other countries if only it pays serious attention to best manufacturing practices.
According to him: “Indeed, the Development Finance Institution (DFI) added that development partners are ready to support viable and sustainable businesses who take into cognisance global best practices as their watchword.”
“There is need for us to do things in line with global best practices. Development partners are ready to work with you. It is for us to come with viable projects so that you can get lendable facilities, debt financing as well as grant from development partners,” he said.
He, however, commended a group of social entrepreneurs, Project Fix Nigeria Limited, for its brilliant initiative to boost fish production in the country, saying that the move is in line with the present administration’s effort to diversify its economy away from hydrocarbon resources.
In his words: “We are here because we support production at different levels. Primarily, we support value addition and processing and the one sector where we are involved in primary production is fishing and aqua culture. This is because of the perishable nature of your products unless you do the processing very close to where it is being harvested, you will have a lot of harvest loss.
“We are ready to finance any viable potential initiative. We are looking at opportunities and ours is to de-risk and also ensure we remove all the risks identified in the project.”
We believe in viable and sustainable businesses because a lot of things will be achieved such as job and wealth creation. There is a lot protein deficiency in Nigeria.”
“We have no business importing fish into this country when we have water all over the place. We can produce our own fish to feed ourselves. This is a bold step being taken at ensuring self-reliance and food security.”
The acting BOI boss said the unemployment situation in Nigeria is artificial, stressing that all what is required is to add value to the nation’s abundant natural endowments.
“For us to engage in productive activities, our natural endowments are enormous. All that is required is for our people to identify these opportunities and see how these advantages can be efficiently and effectively converted into competitive advantage. We can produce enough food for this country and export. This is why we are here to support this initiative,” he said.
