Nigeria wants more collaboration with UNIDO

Nigeria wants more collaboration with UNIDO

The Nigerian government has called for more collaboration between the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment in order to promote and accelerate sustainable Industrial development in the country.

The Minister of Trade and Investment Dr Olusegun Aganga made the call on Tuesday, when the UNIDO Country Representative to Nigeria, Dr. Patrick Kormawa paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Abuja.

Sought improved collaboration

The Minister said there was need for greater collaboration with UNIDO in Investment Promotions, Trade facilitation, industrial clusters, poverty reduction, Textile, skills development and SMEs.

Receiving the UNIDO Country Representative, the Minister pointed out that UNIDO has been a major Development partner to the country and has contributed immensely to the nation’s industrial development and improvement in the living standards of the people of Nigeria through its numerous programmes and projects across the country.

He said that the Ministry was very critical to the success of the Transformation Agenda of the government. 

Dr. Aganga explained that now that the name of the Ministry had changed from Federal Ministry of Commerce and Industry to Ministry of Trade and Investment with a wider mandate, his priority was to reposition the Ministry to play its active role in the actualization of the new Reform Agenda of the new administration. 

He therefore called for more active collaboration between UNIDO and the Ministry to achieve the goals.

Unfolding the vision and the mission of the new administration in the area of Trade and Investment , Dr. Aganga pointed out that Nigeria had under invested over the years and stressed the need to invest in every sector of the economy to bring about the much needed economic transformation.

Facilitating investment activities

According to him, one area he hoped UNIDO and the Ministry could work together was the establishment of Investment Promotion Unit in the Ministry so as to integrate into the UNIDO worldwide network of investment as well as technology promotion to create a direct link that would facilitate all activities in Trade and Investment.

Stressing the importance of productivity to the development of the economy, he said: “Looking at the country today, productivity is a function of capital and innovation.  One of the greatest barriers to productivity is lack of adequate power supply.  Some industries have to provide their own power thus raising cost of production to about 40 percent, making our product not as competitive as it is supposed to be.”

He said: “It is important that as a country we need power but in this Ministry what is paramount is to accomplish our mandate which  is to have industrial power which the industries require.  We want them to have access to power as soon as possible and that is why your efforts with the Ministry should be well coordinated”.

The minister explained that another area where more collaboration would be sought was Textile.  Observing that most of the equipment used in the industry is outdated, Aganga called on the Industry players to be using modern equipment to enhance their productivity and pointed out that UNIDO and the Ministry would have a lot to do in that area.

Ministry’s projections

 Dr. Aganga said that during his tenure efforts would be concentrated in industrial clusters and expressed believe that “with the assistance of UNIDO, a lot will be achieved in this area.”

In the area of skills acquisition, Dr. Aganga said: “We have very young population and the whole idea would be to convert this population to active work force.  We have very young population average of about 18.6 years (21% youth are not employed between 15 – 34 years) (Between 15 -22 years 32% of that -fall into that bracket.  37 percent of that ….have secondary Education What we are looking for is skills development.  We use to have that many years ago but now I am not only in favour of skills development, we are looking for skills that are relevant to our economy.  Once we train them, they set up, their own business – small micro business.”

In the area of SMEs, the Minister pointed out that Nigerians are naturally business people with great ideas.  He noted that the Ministry would promote enterprises through SMEs and industrial clusters. 

“We want to have a very strong SMEs sector in the next one year.  We have started the process by providing about 500 million dollars through the Bank of Industry (BOI) and EXIM Bank.  We are working with Lagos Business school Council, which has a very robust and effective programme, where they take entrepreneurs through programmes that will enable them understand how to start and run business. 

“They will work with Banks with those who have good bankable business ideas and access to funds through BOI and Exim Bank.  Once that model works we will get other Banks to participate in this. 

“The whole idea is for the Lagos Business School to work with the 23 Industrial Centres we have under this Ministry, and parastatals (SMEADAN). I am going to form a committee which will eventually turn to council and become advocate for SMEs sector across the country,” Aganga said.

Earlier, the UNIDO Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Patrick Kormawa, pointed out that the relationship between the Ministry and UNIDO was very cordial noting that they have developed and implemented many programmes together.

He added that Nigeria should move from potentials to reality as it has what it takes to be an industrialized country by the year 2020.

Dr. Kormawa highlighted some of the projects UNIDO is executing in collaboration with the Ministry and State governments to include three ton/hr rice mill in Ebonyi and Benue States Common Facility Centres at Aba, Kano and Benin, salt processing in Ebony State as well as renewable energy in Enugu, Bauchi, Benin, Osun and Taraba States.

PR/Hauwa/Williams