The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Business

  • Business confidence wanes over CBN policies’

    The Organised Private Sector (OPS) has lamented the erosion of the goodwill Nigeria enjoyed at the inception of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration due to the controversial policies churned out by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) especially the foreign exchange policy that has crippled the real sector.

    President, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) said they have been inundated by reports from foreign missions on the increased defaults recorded by their home businesses as a result of the inability of Nigerian businesses to keep to the terms of their initial payment agreements as a result of their inability to access foreign exchange.

    He said  if the policy is not reversed, it may cripple entrepreneurial spirit of the average indigenous businessman, especially those who are involved in manufacturing, importation and exportation.  “The monetary and fiscal measures so far adopted are taking a huge toll on investors in the free trade zones and the risk of international isolation of Nigeria if current policies were not reversed is high,” he said.

    Very recently, the CBN has taken a number of monetary measures to save the naira and the foreign reserves, which have been on the downward spiral. The apex bank has restricted the use of export proceeds and have excluded importers of 41 items from accessing foreign exchange from the Nigerian markets. The bank has also tightened the forex procedures and set rules on domiciliary account to save the economy.

    But the economy is now faced with a scenario where there is a much greater pressure to move funds out of the economy than bring funds into the economy, Bello cautioned.

    “Round tripping of forex has continued to flourish because of the disparity in the exchange rate between the official and parallel market.

    “Small businesses have moved to neighbouring countries to effect transfers to their suppliers abroad. Many companies are on the brink of collapse because of failure to access forex for raw materials and other critical inputs. Even companies whose inputs are valid for forex also suffer the same fate,” the LCCI president added.

     

    He urged president Buhari to intervene before further damage was done to the private sector and the economy, suggesting that the naira exchange rate should be allowed to reflect the fundamentals of the market.

    “A rate that market fundamentals cannot support would not be sustainable. We suggest the adoption of a market approach with a periodic intervention by the CBN as the capacity permits,” he suggested.

    LCCI Director General, Mr. Muda Yusuf said exporters should be allowed to have unfettered access to their proceeds, saying that the current policy regarding export proceeds was a disincentive. He wondered why an exporter should not be allowed the freedom to choose the bank to do business with.

    He advised CBN to engage with relevant economic ministries in order to bring about coherence in the management of the Nigerian economy, insisting the apex bank is ignorant of manufacturing processes.

    Some of the problems the country faces relate to the problem of poor productivity, he said, urging the Federal Government to accelerate investment in infrastructure and build quality institutions for better productivity in the country.

    He however, identified some positive developments such as improved power  and fuel supply, aggressive war against terrorism and anti-corruption crusade but advised strongly that the CBN forex policy should be discontinued with all the urgency it requires.

  • Buhari assures French investors

    Towards boosting economic activities and creating jobs for Nigerian youth, President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday assured investors in France and other parts of the world of his administration’s commitment to providing an enabling business environment in the country.

    The President gave the assurance while addressing a gathering of investors at the Nigerian-France presidential business forum at the headquarters of the French Business Confederation in Paris, France.

    According to him, the decision to urgently tackle the issue of insecurity was to ensure the safety of all citizens and guarantee investment for both local and foreign investors.

    Noting that Nigeria and France already have a cordial trade partnership, he said that there was need to promote a win-win sustainable business relationship between the two countries.

    Tracing the long standing economic ties between the two countries as far back as 1902 when the CFO set up a training programme in Lagos State, he said that his government will rebuild Nigeria into a competitive, virile, productive economy based on excellence, integrity, transparency, accountability and respect for the rule of law.

    “It is a positive development that today Nigeria is the largest trading partner with France in Africa. But opportunities abound to greatly increase the current $5billion annual trade volume and I fully agree with President Hollande when he declared in February, 2014 in Abuja that trade volume between both countries should double in four years,” he said

    The trade expansion, he said, is to cover critical areas like agriculture, energy, automobile and skill development.

    “Today many French companies are happy to have flourishing businesses in Nigeria, opportunities abound to greatly increase the $5billion annual trade volume between the two countries”

    President Buhari also commended the commitment of the French President Francois Hollande on his plan to redouble the trade volume.

  • China’s soaring business empire in Nigeria

    China’s soaring business empire in Nigeria

    With a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) projected to hit $19.23 trillion this year, surpassing United States’ $18.29 trillion, China has become a counterforce to U.S. monopoly of the global economy. Much of its soaring economic power is drawn from the activities of a horde of Chinese businessmen and entrepreneurs, who have ‘invaded’ the Nigerian market, swelling its trade volume with Nigeria by $18.1 billion (about N38.01 trillion). Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA reports that despite Nigeria being the toast of Chinese investors and businessmen, there are still grey areas in the blossoming relationship.

    It is not for nothing that the dragon is the symbol of strength and enterprise of the Chinese nation. Like the mythical monster, known for its fierce, protective and ravaging attributes, the Asian Tiger, as China is popularly called, has been ravaging the globe, especially the developing African continent in search of trade and investment opportunities. The search, no doubt, has paid off.

    China, for the first time, surpassed the United States (U.S.) as the world’s largest economy in 2014. Its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) soared to $17.63 trillion ahead of U.S. $17.42 trillion, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

    According to the records in terms of purchasing power, China accounts for 16.5 per cent of the global economy, compared to U.S.’ 16.3 per cent. The Asian giant has also been tipped by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to hit a GDP of $19.23 trillion before the end of this year, surpassing U.S.’ projected GDP of $18.29 trillion.

    With a population of 1.36 billion people, the largest in the world, China has to its credit the highest global economic growth rate in the last three decades, averaging 10 per cent annually. Yet, the ‘rampaging monster’ is charging on, drawing its greatest strength for her impressive growth rate, arguably, from her trade and investment exploits in Nigeria.

    From oil & gas to construction; power to Information and Communications Technology (ICT); manufacturing to education; healthcare to hospitality; transport to aviation; textile to defence and trading and general merchandising, China is spreading its tentacles in Africa’s most populous and largest economy.

    The Nation learnt that close to 300 Chinese companies are currently operating in various sectors of the Nigerian economy. The activities of these companies have seen the volume of trade between China and Nigeria growing from less than $2 billion in 2000 to $18.1 billion (about N38.01 trillion in 2014).

    According to the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Gu Xiaojie, the figure represents 30 per cent increase over that of the preceding year. The envoy, who spoke at an interactive session with newsmen in Abuja, said bilateral relations between Nigeria and China had been growing in “leaps and bounds.”

    The ambassador’s position was corroborated by National Coordinator of the Nigeria-China Business Council (NCBC), Chief Matthew Uwakwe, who said the volume of trade transactions between both countries has grown from $3.4 billion to over $10 billion between 2009 when the Council started and this year (a period of six years).

    The NCBC, which is under the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, was established six years ago to promote bilateral trade relations between both countries and grow infrastructural expertise in Nigeria.

    When The Nation visited the Council’s Lagos Office on Samuel Olabode Street, off Isheri Road, an official could not hide his excitement over what he described as “a business relationship skewed in favour of Nigeria.” To support his assertion, the official, who pleaded for anonymity because he was not authorised to speak, said nine Nigerians are currently undergoing training in China in the area of pre-paid meter installation and maintenance.

    He said on completion of the programme, the lucky Nigerians, to be trained free for two months, are to be engaged by SkyRun Electric Smart Metering System and Solutions (Nig.) Limited, a $500 million pre-paid meter/electronics manufacturing firm operating in the Calabar Free Trade Zone (CFTZ).

    As Uwakwe earlier explained, the youths were sent to China to sharpen their skills in modern technology, regarding energy and prepaid meters.

    “The training is to improve their skills in modern technology,” he explained, expressing hope that when they return, “the problem of prepaid meters will be reduced.”

    Immediate Power Minister Prof. Chinedu Nebo is also hopeful. He said establishing the metering company in the country will enhance revenue generation of the distribution companies (DISCO’s), thereby curtailing the menace of estimated billing as being experienced by electricity customers in many parts of the country.

    “As we increase electricity consumption rate, we also have to produce more meters to meet demand.” he said, lamenting that about 60 per cent of customers are not metered hence, manufacturing meters locally will significantly close the metering gap and create employment opportunities to unemployed youths, besides enabling investors to re-coup their investment as planned.

    SkyRun has been in Nigeria in the last 10 years. Its plant will is billed for inauguration in the last quarter of the year. The company has over 500 indigenous workers on its payroll an its Calabar site, where it is currently manufacturing a single-phase and three-phase Smart Meters. The meters will significantly boost the revenue base of DISCO’s operating in Nigeria. The NCBC official, who spoke with The Nation said many DISCOS’s have been placing order for pre-paid meters for their customers. An array of pre-paid meters displayed at NCBC’s office bears testimony to China’s resolve to play a leading role in Nigeria’s power sector post-privatisation.

     

    Running a ring round the power sector

    The power sector is one of the areas receiving Chinese investors’ greatest attention, a trend that is hardly surprising. China is aware of the huge unmet demand in Nigeria’s electricity market and is determined to fill the gap. For instance, access-to-power is currently limited to approximately 40 per cent of Nigeria’s estimated 170 million people and electricity supply has is still below 600 Megawatts (MW) for a suppressed demand estimated at 10,000 MW. The Federal Government’s target is to achieve up to 75 per cent access to electricity by 2020 by connecting an average of 1.5 million households annually.

    The huge electricity supply gap has created a market too lucrative and tempting for Chinese investors to ignore.  In July, for instance, a Chinese public utility – the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) – offered to inject a whopping $12 billion into the electricity sector in an ambitious investment programme in the second phase of the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP).

    SGCC, arguably the largest state-owned electricity utility company in the world, has offered to invest the money in two tranches, starting off with an initial payment of $8 billion and additional $4 billion later. The payments will be equity and loan participations in electricity transmission projects for the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) through the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC).

    According to a status report on Nigeria’s power sector presented by the NDPHC to the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, SGCC made the offer in consortium with its other partners, CET Power and Westron. Under the programme, the NDPHC will commit about $600 million to the transmission project. Presenting the status report to the government, NDPHC’s Managing Director James Olotu said the transmission projects are 15 of the 114 that will not be completed in the first phase of the NIPP due to intractable way-leave issues and cost escalations.

    They have, however, been transferred to the second phase of the NIPP for consideration and approval by the board. It is these projects and a couple of others that SGCC and its other partners have indicated an interest to fund. The status report showed that within the prevailing transmission challenges of the power sector, SGCC’s funding portfolio in the sector could rise to $18 billion if the government resolves inherent challenges in projects’ financing in the transmission network, vis-à-vis the country’s power sector.

    That is not all. The largest coal to power company in China is interested in coming to invest in Nigeria. Many big companies who are into power generation and transmission have indicated their interest in investing in Nigeria. A Chinese firm and two local investors have since concluded arrangements to inject $10 billion (about N1.99 trillion) into the manufacturing of lighting equipment and accessories to boost electricity supply in Nigeria.

    Under the deal, seen by energy experts as the wedge for solar energy adaptation in the country, Hongye-Sinari Group, Niger-Sino Industries Limited and Hamaded Logistics will build a solar energy accessories’ plant, which, when operational, will serve industrial and housing estates, schools, hospitals and malls.

    The investment, according to the Director, Energy Generation, Hongye-Sinari Group, Mr. Xu Rongchang, will bail Nigeria out of its power problems.

    Addressing members of the Organised Private Sector (OPS) in Lagos, Head of the Chinese delegation, Mr. David Yang Xoaohua, said the Chinese firm has branches in over 100 countries with over 5,000 workforce, and investible fund of over $10 billion. He said with such enormous funds, the company, which is also into the manufacture of agricultural equipment, needs clear rules of engagement, an enabling environment and a good legal framework that protects investors and investment.

    Xoaohua added that after a careful study, the firm has come to the conclusion that Nigeria, being the largest economy in Africa, remains the best place to invest with high returns on investment. Noting that the companies specialise in the manufacture of lighting equipment and accessories; solar energy, he affirmed China’s commitment to a significant role in the energy sector.

    He said: “Our aim is to help the nation in the areas of infrastructural development and the mechanisation of its manufacturing process, develop the energy sector to boost manufacturing and other forms of businesses. It’s a win-win situation as it provides opportunity for massive employment generation. This is one area we learnt the government is working hard to bridge. There will be no case of dumping of fake and substandard goods as we will set up our manufacturing plant.”

  • JCI fetes Asia business community

    The Junior Chamber International Nigeria (JCIN) has concluded plans to host a business forum – ‘Let’s go to Asia’ on Setember 27, at the Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos.

    Let’s go to Asia is a prelude to the centenary anniversary of JCI holding in Kanazawa, Japan.

    The forum is offers a platform of opportunities to promote business relationships between young Nigerian business leaders and Asian companies.

    On the initiative, JCIN National President Mr Seun Osikalu said: “Our members invest a lot of resources on their various travels around the world for JCI programmes and conferences. These events provide enormous opportunities for our members to establish lifelong relationships and we want our members and interested members of the public to take deliberate advantage of such opportunities. We have partnered with Asian trade and commercial missions in Nigeria to come sell their countries and they are excited at the prospects that the forum offers.”

    Also, the National Director of Business Affairs, Mr Jide Benson said: “We reckon that since a large delegation of our members will be attending the week-long world congress in Kanazawa Japan, which will be an opportunity for direct interaction with business organisations and people in the Asiatic regions – Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Phillipines, Malaysia, Japan and others – so we thought it fit to be equipped with the right information and knowledge before departure. The region, being the hub for manufacturing and production, has a lot to offer discerning business people.”

    The event is a fee for interested persons and is open to members and non members seeking opportunities to be tapped in Asia and JCI Nigeria is proud to see the need and take the lead.

    The Junior Chamber International is a world federation of  young (community  and business) leaders that provide development opportunities for active citizens to create positive change.

    Entrepreneurship is one of the ideals that the organisation promotes sand the LTGA is geared towards this area.

  • Ease of doing business: World Bank ranks Nigeria 170th

    T he World Bank has ranked Nigeria 170th among 189 countries in a survey  on how easy to do business. It shows an improvement of 2.9 per cent on the 175th position the country occupied last year.

    Tagged: Doing Business 2015: Going Beyond Efficiency, report revealed that entrepreneurs in 123 economies saw improvements in their local regulatory framework last year.

    Also, Nigeria was ranked 129th on the ease of starting a business as against 138th last year, while it was ranked 171th on dealing with construction permits, as against 168th. On registering property, it remained 185th as it was the previous year.

    The country, however, improved immensely on access to credit ranking as it moved from 125th last year to 52nd position in the current ranking.

    Nigeria fell by one point on protecting minority investors’ ranking as it moved from the 61st position last year to the 62nd position this year. On paying taxes, Nigeria was ranked 179th as against 177 last year.

    The report showed Singapore as the best country to do business, while Mauritius remained the best in Africa with a ranking of 28th.

    New Zealand emerged second followed by Hong Kong. Denmark, Norway, United States, United Kingdom Finland and Austria were ranked the top 10 countries.

    Haiti, Angola, Venezuela, Afghanistan, Congo DR, Chad South Sudan, Central African Republic, Libya and Eritrea were ranked the top 10 worst places to do business on the planet.

    Between June 2013 and June, last year, the report, which measured 189 economies worldwide, documented 230 business reforms, with 145 reforms aimed at reducing the complexity and cost of complying with business regulation, and 85 reforms aimed at strengthening legal institutions – with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for the largest number of such reforms.

    The yearly World Bank Group Doing Business report analyses regulations that apply to an economy’s businesses during their life cycle, including start-up and operations, trading across borders, paying taxes, and resolving insolvency.

    The aggregate ease of doing business rankings are based on the distance to frontier scores for 10 topics and covers 189 economies.

    The Word Bank said the distance to frontier score aids in assessing the absolute level of regulatory performance and how it improves over time.

    “This measure shows the distance of each economy to the “frontier,” which represents the best performance observed on each of the indicators across all economies in the Doing Business sample since 2005. This allows users both to see the gap between a particular economy’s performance and the best performance at any point in time and to assess the absolute change in the economy’s regulatory environment over time as measured by doing business.

    Economies, it added, were ranked on their ease of doing business, from 1–189, adding that a high ease of doing business ranking means the regulatory environment is more conducive for starting and operating local firms.

    “The rankings are determined by sorting the aggregate distance to frontier scores on 10 topics, each consisting of several indicators, giving equal weight to each topic. The rankings for all economies are benchmarked to June 2014,” it added.

  • Charmed out of legit business?

    Charmed out of legit business?

    • The odyssey of ChamsCity in the national ID card concession compels a revisit to Nigerian governments’ attitude to Nigerian businesses

    What is the cost of downgrading a 10-year concession into a contract? In the case of Chams Plc and ChamCity, its Nigerian national identity card concession special purpose vehicle, it is N9.2 billion of investors’ money down the drain.

    That is the long-and-short of the national ID card deal between Chams Plc and the Federal Government of Nigeria, via its agency, the Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC). The disputed deal has led to the virtual death of ChamsCity — except the Buhari Presidency quickly intervenes. This has also sustained the hoodoo that has plagued the national ID card scheme, conceived in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but yet to witness full implementation.

    “Today is a sad day for entrepreneurship and innovation,” Sir Demola Aladekomo, Chams Plc’s founding managing director, griped, “as we close down ChamsCity at Ikeja that got Nigeria into the Guinness World Record, because my government could not protect Chams Plc from the onslaught of the NIMC management; a nation that kills its own.”

    Sir Demola’s stinging comment is rather strange. Why might NIMC, an agency of the Federal Government, not only disagree with its principal but is alleged to have muscled it to truncate a concession between the government and Chams Plc?

    Chams’ allegations are even graver.  After winning an open and transparent national ID card implementation bid, which featured 65 other international companies in 2007, the NIMC chief executive officer allegedly dragged his feet, for three years, to frame the concession agreement.

    In-between, based on then President Olusegun Obasanjo’s assurances, that Chams need not wait for the formal concession details, Chams, according to a report in The Nation, went to the market to raise N8.4 billion, to which it added its own N800 million, making a total of N9.2 million. All this it invested in hardware and software, the ChamsCity virtual malls, which entered the Guinness Book of Records as the only digital mall in the world boasting more than 1, 000 fully networked computers in a single location.

    Indeed, ChamCity are in four locations: Abuja (1,200 workstations), Lagos (1,100), Port Harcourt (1,000) and Benin (800), all reportedly geared to, by 2009, start delivering on the national ID card promise, such that by 2014, 50 million Nigerians would have had their ID cards.  The concession would have lasted 10 years.

    According to Chams, however, by 2010, when the formal contract details came out, the concession had reportedly morphed to a one-off contract, thus sparking a legal dispute.

    Rued Sir Demola: “We tried, we begged, we did our best to protect a  concession we won after a major international tender process.  N9.2 billion shareholders’ funds was wasted for pecuniary interests,” he alleged, “of converting a concession to contracts. God help Nigeria!” That has led to the closure of ChamsCity in its four locations; and holding in further abeyance, the national ID card project, which would appear to be jinxed.

    Whichever of the two parties has defaulted, the courts would pronounce in good time. Still, the Chams allegations are grave enough for the Buhari Presidency, under the rubric of its anti-corruption war, to investigate. That would be in the national interest.

    For one, too much money, with too little result, has been spent on the National ID card project for the government not to wade into the matter. It should; and see if it can fix the problem without much delay, so that the project can resume.

    For another, if the Chams allegations are true, it would be yet another painful example of how  the Nigerian bureaucracy often throttles private entrepreneurial initiatives, on an alleged nose for sleaze.  If Chams had been a mono-product company, and it had met this brick wall, the business would have sunk — and with it, hundreds of its employees, not to talk of the money its shareholders would lose.

    That would be wilful waste indeed, for a country in which mass unemployment is a terrifying problem. So, the early the Federal Government intervenes in this matter, the better.

     ‘Whichever of the two parties has defaulted, the courts would pronounce in good time. Still, the Chams allegations are grave enough for the Buhari Presidency, under the rubric of its anti-corruption war, to investigate. That would be in the national interest’

  • South Africa’s business confidence hits 16-year low, weakens rand

    South Africa’s business confidence fell to its lowest level in more than 16 years due to subdued domestic economic performance and global financial market turmoil, a survey showed on Thursday, pushing the rand to a week’s low against the dollar.

    The Business Confidence Index fell to 84.3 last month, retracting to an even lower level than in June after increasing 87.9 in July, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SACCI) said in a statement.

    The rand fell one percent in response to the report, touching a session trough of 13.5735 to the dollar, its softest in more than a week, according to Thomson Reuters’data.

    “The slow growth of 1.2 percent year-on-year in South Africa for the second quarter of 2015 concerns SACCI. An uncertain local economic policy climate perpetuates the underperforming economy and dwindling local business confidence,” SACCI said.

    Africa’s most advanced economy shrunk by 1.3 percent in the second quarter for the first time in more than a year, raising the risk that labour disputes and slowing Chinese demand for commodities could push it towards recession.

    “The turmoil following China’s decision to devalue its currency has spread throughout the globe and the South African economy is certainly not immune,” said Dennis de Jong, an analyst at UFX.com.

    Moody’s Senior Vice President, Kristin Lindow, said in a statement on Wednesday that electricity shortages, low commodity prices, a drought and weaker-than-expected global growth will constrain the economy over the next 18 months.

    The volatile and lower commodity prices together with unpredictable financial markets, contribute to the uneasiness, the business body said.

    Slower growth in China, a key importer of local commodities, has had an impact on commodity prices, adding pressure on the local mining sector. Almost 12,000 mining jobs were on the line in South Africa as mining companies cut costs.

  • Egypt business expands

    Business activity in Egypt’s private sector excluding oil grew in August at the fastest pace of the year on the back of solid growth in output, though employment fell for the eighth time in nine months, a survey showed.

    The Emirates NBD Egypt Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to 51.2 in August, up from 49.2 the previous month. A reading above 50 indicates expansion and below 50, contraction.

    “The improvement in the August survey is encouraging, and more than reverses the decline seen in the previous month,” Jean-Paul Pigat, economist at Emirates NBD, said.

    “The rise in the output component to an 11-month high was, particularly, notable, and hopefully suggests that the slowdown witnessed in July will not persist through H2.”

    The August survey was the highest reading in eight months and the second time this year that business conditions recorded by the survey have improved, albeit modestly.

    Much of the improvement was spurred by an increase in output and new orders, with 23 percent of participants recording higher output than the month before and many reporting stronger demand conditions.

    “With export activity softening, domestic demand is likely to be the main driver of growth in the near term,” said Pigat.

    Egyptian non-oil exports during the first seven months of the year fell by 19 percent compared to the same period last year, the state’s General Organisation for Export and Import Control said in July. New work from abroad decreased in August for the third time in four months. Some participants tied lower exports to a lack of stability across key international markets in the Middle East.

    Despite increased output the PMI survey also showed that hiring dropped for the eighth time in nine months.

    Though Egypt’s unemployment rate edged down to 12.7 percent in the second quarter of 2015, the jobless rate among youth holding a university degree was 44.6 percent.

    President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi has pledged to reduce joblessness to 10 percent over the next five years while reviving the economy through long-awaited reforms, state-led mega-projects, and the return of foreign investors and tourists.

    Companies attributed another sharp rise in purchase prices in August to the ongoing weakness of the Egyptian pound versus the dollar.

  • JCI Nigeria fetes Asia business community

    The Junior Chamber International Nigeria (JCIN) has concluded plans to host a business forum – ‘Let’s go to Asia’ on Setember 27 at the Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos. Let’s go to Asia is a prelude to the Centenary anniversary of the JCI holding in Kanazawa Japan. The forum is a platform of opportunities to promote business relationships between young Nigerian business leaders and Asian companies.

    On the initiative, JCIN National President, Mr Seun Osikalu, said: “Our members invest a lot of resources on their various travels around the world for JCI programmes and conferences. These events provide enormous opportunities for our members to establish lifelong relationships and we want our members and interested members of the public to take deliberate advantage of such opportunities. We have partnered with Asian trade and commercial missions in Nigeria to come sell their countries and they are excited at the prospects that the forum offers.”

    Also, the National Director of Business Affairs, Mr Jide Benson said: “We reckon that since a large delegation of our members will be attending the week-long world congress in Kanazawa Japan, which will be an opportunity for direct interaction with business organisations and people in the Asiatic regions – Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Phillipines, Malaysia, Japan and others – so we thought it fit to be equipped with the right information and knowledge before departure. The region being the hub for manufacturing and production has a lot to offer discerning business people.”

    The event is a fee for interested persons and is open to members and non members seeking opportunities to be tapped in Asia and JCI Nigeria is proud to see the need and take the lead.

    The Junior Chamber International is a world federation of young (community and business) leaders that provide development opportunities for active citizens to create positive change.

    Entrepreneurship is one of the ideals that the organisation promotes sand the LTGA is geared towards this area.

     

  • Graduate trains students in online business skills

    Students of the University of Benin (UNIBEN) have been trained to be online entrepreneurs by Sky Combabs Nigeria Limited, an Information Communication and Technology (ICT) firm.

    The campus became a beehive on Saturday when the seminar was held to equip participants with digital media skills.

    The event, with the theme: Business empowerment invasion, lasted for 12 hours.

    Samuel Ugwumba, a 500-Level student and participant, described the seminar as inspirational, saying it would stoke the passion of students to channel their energy for productive use.

    The organiser, Adebayo Ajayi, a graduate of the university, said the training was necessary to help students prepare for life after school. He said the possibility of getting white-collar jobs was getting slimmer daily, adding that he spent four years to look for non-existent jobs.

    His words: “During the times I spent waiting to be mobilised for National Youth Service, I tried to empower myself. Many people graduated from school and have nothing to do; they wait for the government. I found out that I could do genuine business on the Internet and this worked out for me. This is why I come back to my alma mater to equip students with knowledge I learnt for free.”

    Adebayo said the seminar would enable students make legitimate money online, adding that there was no need for graduates to wait on the government. Adebayo described Facebook as a blessing to the current generation, noting that social media is platform to make money.

    “The government also needs help. There is abundant money that can be made legitimately online. We need to let students know this, instead of wasting time chatting on Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. They can convert their megabytes to dollars,” he added.

    Many students registered for the free mentorship programme and pledged to start trading on social media. After the training, a raffle draw was held in which lucky students won fans, pressing iron and blenders.