The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Bank of Industry (BoI)

  • Make skills training compulsory for corps members – NYSC

    Make skills training compulsory for corps members – NYSC

    The National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) has urged the Federal Government to make its Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development (SAED) compulsory for all corps members in the country.

    Mrs Chinyere Ekwe, Head of SAED in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) office of NYSC, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Saturday.

    She said that making the training compulsory to all corps members would increase the number of youths trained in various skills targeted at growth and development of the nation.

    Ekwe explained that SAED was introduced by the scheme to enable corps members to learn and develop one or more skills for self-reliance.

    According to her, the initiative was introduced to support Federal Government’s efforts at addressing unemployment in the country, but presently, it is not compulsory for the corps members.

    “This defeats the aim of introducing the programme, because if more youths participate in skills training, more youths will become self-employed, self-reliant and employers of labour

    “If more youths are trained, they will in turn train many others, but in a situation where this programme is not compulsory for them, you find that a lot of them may show lackadaisical attitude towards it.

    “I also think that there is need to reduce the training fee to a minimal rate so that more corps members can participate.

    “The FCT Coordinator, Mr Salawu Abdulrazak, has tried to bring down the training fee to N10, 000 for six-month training and for corps members can to pay in installments.

    “If more is done to support the corps members by bringing down the fee, it will encourage more of them to join,” Ekwe said.

    She also urged the government to support the scheme with provision of materials, saying that training large number of corps members yearly in various skills without materials was a major challenge to the scheme.

    According to her, right now in the camp, hands-on training is free, but there are no materials for corps members to use in the training. We also do not have well-equipped skills centres in the area councils.

    Ekwe commended the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) for its effort in providing an ICT center at the orientation camp for training of corps members.

    She urged serving corps members to make use of the opportunity to learn one or more skills in order to become skillful, self-reliant and productive.

    She said that emphasis on certificate was waning in Nigeria, adding that it was therefore why learning a skill or more had become necessary.

    “You will be empowering yourself and other youths by doing this”.

    The NYSC official said that many corps members who had passed through the programme had established businesses, adding that SAED’s partners had also continued to support corps members with start-up capital.

    She said that partners like Bank of Industry (BoI) gave corps members loan as much as N2 million, while the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) also had a loan scheme that could give N3 million to a corps member.

  • BOL to assist SMEs with N376bn before end of 2019

    Mr Waheed Olagunju, Acting Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BoI) says the bank will assist Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with N376 billion before the end of 2019.

    Olagunju spoke in Makurdi while presenting a paper entitled; “Target Financing for SMEs’’ at a management retreat for officers of the ministry and its parastatal agencies.

    The conference had as its theme, “Implementing the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) through Industry, Trade and Investment’’.

    According to Olagunju, disbursement to SMEs increased from a record of N5.64 billion  in 2015 to N8.02 billion  as at end of 2016, while for 2019 we are targeting N376 billion.

    He said the bank had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Afterschool Graduate Development Centre.

    The scheme he said would provide between N200, 000 to N500, 000 to empower one million youths over the next five years.

    Olagunju said the bank had also lent N5 billion micro-finance banks for financing of micro-loans.

    “About N4.5 billion has been disbursed to micro-finance banks and over 15,000 microenterprises have benefitted from this scheme,’’ he said.

    Olagunju said 44 key business clusters had been identified nationwide with products developed, taking into account peculiarities as SMEs Credit group was set up to ensure effective turnaround time in reviewing credit.

    He said the bank had also disbursed N1.48 billion to market associations and co-operatives, as well as developed strategic alliances with MFBs and Mobile Money operators to facilitate effective disbursement.

    According to Olagunju, the bank has identified a number of key sources toward shoring-up its lending capacity.

  • DG NYSC expresses FGs commitments towards empowering corps members

    DG NYSC expresses FGs commitments towards empowering corps members

    Brig-Gen. Suleiman Kazaure, Director-General, National Youth service Corps (NYSC) said on Thursday that the Federal Government was committed to   empowering corps members with skills to enable them become self-employed after their  service.

    Kazaure stated this when he inspected the NYSC Integrated Skills Acquisition and Vocational Centre project for the North- East zone in Lafiawo town of Akko Local Government in Gombe state , currently under construction.

    He said similar centres would be sited in each of the six geopolitical zones of the country.

    Kzaure said the projects would not only enable the corps members to be self-employed, but also become employees of labour after their service year.

    “When we come on board, we discovered that we have problem of post-camp training in skills acquisition and therefore decided to initiate a project in the six geo-political zones.

    “If you look at the number of corps members we are producing, no government or private organizations can employ all of them,” he said.

    According to him, the project is being embarked upon in collaboration with Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Bank of Industry (BOI).

    Kazaure expressed his satisfaction with the level of work on the projects in the state and urged the contractor to maintain standard.

    Mr Ibeh Chidube, NYSC Coordinator in Gombe said that the centre had the capacity to accommodate 500 corps members and 20 facilitators.

    He then commended the effort of the D-G for his initiative, and Gombe state government, for their support

  • Nigeria, Israel seek stronger bilateral trade ties

    Worried about the low volume of trade between Nigeria and Israel, the Bank of Industry (BOI) and the Israeli government have entered into ‎a partnership agreement to seek ways to deepen and strengthen the bilateral trade relationship between both economies.

    The acting Managing Director, BOI, Mr. Waheed Olagunju during a courtesy visit by Israel’s ambassador to BOI, said the ‎partnership is apt, coming at a time when Nigeria is trying to improve and increase its agro processing capacity, urging domestic and foreign investors to take advantage of the opportunity to invest in the nation’s vast agricultural sector.

    According to ‎the acting Managing Director, BOI boss, the partnership would also cover areas of possible collaboration in the recently launched Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) of the federal government, maintaining that there is a lot of money to be made by Isreali investors in Nigeria.

    “We believe if the Israeli business model is right, they can reap much more in the Nigerian economy because our vast natural and resource endowments,” he said.

    “There is no country as blessed as Nigeria in the world. The Bank of Industry (BOI) will be on ground to work with Israeli investors who wants to do business in Nigeria. Whoever wants to do business in Nigeria can always work with BOI and we will give them all our hands. We are on ground in Nigeria to hold the hands of both domestic and foreign investors who wants to do business in the country.”

    He said the Development Finance Institution (DFI) is looking forward to a very good time with its foreign and domestic development partners with Israeli investors  being one of the most outstanding.

    ‎”You are coming at the right time when the country is trying to ‎improve and increase its agro processing capacity because we have had bumper harvest last year and we are still going to have more in the coming years and if steps are not taken urgently to improve the agro processing industry, there could be post-harvest losses and this will serve as a disincentive to farmers.

    “So we are stepping up our agro processing capacity in the country to ensure that we preserve and add value to our agricultural produce while also preparing them for the export market as well,” he said.

    In his response, the Israel Ambassador ‎to Nigeria, Mr. Guy Feldman‎, said the Israeli government believes that there is much more both economies can do in terms of trade, stating that the partnership would identify areas on how to improve and strengthen bilateral trade agreements between Nigeria and Israel.

    ‎”Israel has ideas and innovations where Nigeria can tap from to drive any sector of the economy. The trade between the two countries is something which we have more with the smallest countries in Europe and other places and this shows that something is definitely wrong somewhere, because we believe Nigeria is a huge economy and we believe we can a whole lot more,” he said.

     

  • ‘Nigerians need three million cooking gas cylinders annually’

    The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) says that Nigerians need no less than three million Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) also, known as cooking gas cylinders, annually.

    Mr Simbi Wabate, the Executive Secretary of the Board, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Sunday.
    According to him, the only LPG cylinder manufacturing company in the country located at Isheri in Ogun , has capacity to produce about 400,000 cooking gas cylinders yearly.

    He said this was far below what Nigerian homes required annually.

    He said that this had encouraged the in-flow of substandard and expired LPG cylinders into the country.

    Wabate said that in order to stop this, the board had conceived what he called “the local manufacture of liquefied gas cylinders’ initiative’’.

    He said this would create employment opportunities, stop importation of LPG cylinders and jump-start a new cylinder-producing industry.

    According to him, the initiative is connected to the Federal Government’s domestic gas utilisation programme aimed at encouraging the use of cooking gas by every home in the country.

    He said that studies had shown that for domestic gas utilisation programme to pull through; there was the need to address the availability, affordability and acceptability of LPG and its cylinders by all stakeholders.

    Wabate said the initiative would make cylinders affordable and create a new industry in the LPG value chain with respect to local manufacturing.

    The executive secretary said it would also enhance the use of cleaner fuel supply, thereby, reducing environmental pollution in the country.

    It would also reduce the utilisation of firewood which would discourage deforestation, he said.
    Wabate said that the board would develop a funding-model to support would-be investors.

    He said this had led the board to go into partnership with the Bank of Industry (BoI).

    NAN reports that NCDMB was created to realise Federal Government’s aspiration of increasing indigenous participation in the oil and gas industry, build local capacity, and create linkages with other sectors of the national economy.

  • Ministry to part mining intervention funds to boost tiles production

    The Ministry of Mines and Steel Development said on Tuesday it would commit part of the mining intervention funds to support tile producers, to reduce importation gap.

    Dr Kayode Fayemi, Minister of Mines and Steel Development, disclosed this during a tour to CIBI Nigeria Limited quarry in Buruku, Kaduna State.

    Fayemi said part of the fund would be drawn from the World Bank single digit loan and the N30 billion Mining Intervention Fund approved by the Federal Government last year, among others.

    According to him, the ministry is in partnership with the Bank of Industry (BOI) to offer loan facility from the intervention funds to ”serious minded people” already producing tiles.

    “We are working with the BOI to disburse the loans as soon as the intervention funds are released to serious tile producers across the country,” he said.

    He said the CIBI would have been able to produce more than 200,000 square metres being made annually from dimension stones, if adequate resources, including finance, equipment and others were in its reach.

    Fayemi said that Nigeria needed four million square metres of tiles annually, adding that all the local tile producers could only produce less than a million annually.

    “The bulk of tiles we use in Nigeria are imported from Italy, China and India, among others; we need to support them because we envisaged this in our roadmap.

    “We are endowed with lots of mineral resources; we have dimension stones everywhere but not exploited; there is no stone we don’t have in Nigeria,” he said.

    Alhaji Nuhu Wya, Chairman of CIBI, urged government to support its project, as there were more demands for tiles but it lacked sufficient capital to expand the business.

    Wya said the company usually received market orders from its customers two months before production.

    ”Our company needs long-term loans to run the business to increase tiles production that could reduce importation gap.

    “If investment put in oil industry is replicated in solid minerals, Nigeria does not need to depend on oil as its mainstay because we are blessed with mineral stones abundantly,’’ he said.

    The ministry’s roadmap to contribute to the nation’s GDP is to reduce importation of tiles and concentrate on the production.

    The minister, on March 13, commenced tour of mine fields across the country.

     

  • Nine year old designer to get FG support

    Nine year old designer to get FG support

    The Minister of State for Industry Trade and Investment, Mrs Aisha Abubakar, says the Federal Government will support nine-year-old Nelson Ashinze to realise his potential as a designer.

    Abubakar made the pledge during the presentation of Ashinze’s brand of designs, Nelson George Clothing, on Monday in Abuja.

    She said that the young entrepreneur needed support to showcase his talent.

    The minister said that the ministry would ensure that Ashinze enjoyed the support of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and Bank of Industry (BoI), both agencies under it.

    According to her, the young entrepreneur’s company has been duly registered, adding that the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) would also assist him when his products were ready for export.

    “We are going to make sure that he has the adequate training on entrepreneurship skills, we have BoI that will provide machines when he is in need of machines, we are going to help him access machinery from the bank.

    “We are promoting “Made in Nigeria’’ and this is definitely a made in Nigeria initiative; so we are going to use him as one of our champions for the initiative.

    “He is also promoting the cotton, textile and garment industries which again we are promoting, so we have a market for him and we are going to give him all the necessary support that he needs to ensure that he runs a successful business in Nigeria,” Abubakar said.

    Master Nelson, the young entrepreneur, said that he discovered his talent on bow tie making in school during the craft class.

    He said he came this far with the support of his parents.

    His manager, Mr David Ashinze, said that the young entrepreneur was known for creative designs of handmade bow ties, pocket squares, headband and accessories with a classic touch of African prints.

    Ashinze said that at the age of eight in 2015, Nelson founded the Nelson George clothing where he doubles as a designer and a CEO.

    “Since his debut production, Nelson has been able to put his craft on runway fashion platform,’’Ashinze said.

    Also speaking at the presentation, the Minister of State for Environment, Alhaji Ibrahim Jibir said that Ashinze needed not only the support of his parents but the government as well.

    “I believe that with children like this young boy, there is hope for Nigeria.

    “He is an encouragement to children out there, with what he is doing; the sky is his limit.

    Jibir, however, advised Nelson’s parents not to exploit his talents, but to encourage him.

  • BoI will finance only NAFDAC certified products

    BoI will finance only NAFDAC certified products

    The Bank of Industry (BoI) on Friday said that it would not finance products not certified by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC).

    The Acting Managing-Director of the bank, Mr Waheed Olagunju, made this known in Lagos during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the bank and NAFDAC.

    “It is only certified products that can be sold in the market profitably. It is important for BoI customers to be accredited.

    “Their accreditation by NAFDAC shows that they conform to best manufacturing practices.

    “BoI is supporting many local pharmaceutical companies under Manufacturers Association of Nigeria to export their products because they meet NAFDAC and World Health Organisation (WHO) standards,” Olagunju said.

    He said that the synergy would give BoI access to NAFDAC’s database to ascertain certified products before financing them.

    According to Olagunju, the synergy will facilitate economic growth by ensuring that Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) conform to best production standards.

    Olagunju said that both organisations would leverage on their local and international development partners for the success of the partnership.

    Mrs Yetunde Oni, Acting Director-General, NAFDAC, said that the collaboration would entrench Federal Government’s agenda on promoting non-oil sector of the economy.

    She said that the partnership would boost productivity of SMEs by ensuring granting of marketing authorisation to products that would adopt good manufacturing practice.

    Oni said that partnership with BoI would enable NAFDAC to reach the grassroots, support more entrepreneurs, especially SMEs, toward aiding business growth.

    “The collaboration is a win-win for both parties. While BoI provides machinery and technical support, NAFDAC will furnish BoI with information vital for decision-making toward economic development,” she said.

  • N1.7bn to be invested in arts, crafts development in Niger State-BOI

    N1.7bn to be invested in arts, crafts development in Niger State-BOI

    N1.7 billion has been earmarked for the development of modern arts and crafts in Niger State. This is to be done by The Bank of Industry (BOI) .

    Mr Emmanuel Zhiri, the Acting Executive Director, Council for Arts and Culture.told journalists in Minna on Tuesday that the gesture was aimed at boosting tourism in the state.

    “Our efforts in the development of arts and crafts in Niger State has attracted the BOI to collaborate with the state government.

    “As I am speaking to you now, BOI has set aside N1.7 billion for the development of arts and crafts in Niger State.’’

    Zhiri said that the development of the arts and crafts sector would be a collaborative effort among the BOI, state government and other private partners.

    He explained that the fund would be used to establish arts and crafts industry for cotton, ceramics, brass and glass work and also to train the needed manpower.

    Zhiri said that 25, 000 artisans would be trained under the programme, adding that 1,000 artisans would be selected from each of the 25 local government areas in the state.

    According to him, 200 trainees would be sent to Kenya based on their performances for further training, adding that they would, in turn, train others on their return.

    Zhiri said that some states had begun arrangements with the state council for arts and crafts to train their artisans.

    “Some of them want us to train artisans in the making of ceramics.’’

    He appealed to the government to renovate the arts theatre, to enable the council to revive live theatre performances for fun seekers and tourists.

  • Nigeria will come out of recession stronger in 2017— LCCI

    Nigeria will come out of recession stronger in 2017— LCCI

    The President, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Dr Nike Akande, has predicted  that Nigeria will surmount its economic woes and come out of the recession stronger in 2017.

    Akande said this on the sidelines of the LCCI 128th Annual General Meeting (AGM) dinner in Lagos.

    She said that Nigeria, as the giant of Africa, would not stay too long before bouncing back to its former pride of place among the Commonwealth of Nations.

    “LCCI has noted in particular the decline in oil price, the weakening of our currency and the associated challenges this scenario portends.

    “I strongly believe that we will bounce back from the recession stronger in 2017. The economic recession was caused by our over-dependence on oil, but now we have taken the bull by its horns.

    “So many campaigns are going on and restructuring on diversification; with all these put in place, we are sure to come back to reckoning among the Commonwealth of Nations.

    “The year 2o17 is just a couple of months away but by the end of it, things will be better, I am very optimistic,” she said.

    The Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BOI), Mr Waheed Olagunju, said right investment portfolio and diversification would get Nigeria out of recession in short time.

    “What we need to do in this time of this recession is to diversify our economy and stop paying lip service to it.

    “We will need to look at the Mexico model and stop the over-reliance on crude oil as the mainstay of revenue for the country.  We need other sectors as well.

    “We need to encourage more investments because increased investment is one of the ways we can get out of recession. When you invest, it increases production and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increases.

    “We can only grow our economy by providing a wide range of investment portfolios and also encourage manufacturing which is a key to any economic development,’’ he said.