The Managing Director, Bank of Industry, BoI, Mr Olaoluwa, yesterday restated the bank’s commitment to continue to provide financial support to agribusiness entrepreneurs in the country as a strategic option of improving their productivity and ensuring their products can compete in the global market.
Giving the assurance at the maiden Annual General Meeting, AGM, of the Nigeria Agribusiness Group, NASG, held in Lagos, the banking expert recalled that the bank had expanded the scope of its agricultural sector financing, adding that this initiative is aimed at positioning the bank at the vanguard of current efforts to diversify the nation’s economic base through financial access to genuine agro processors and exporters.
Olaoluwa, who described the efforts of the NASG to bring all agribusiness owners together for the purposes of championing their common cause as laudable, urged the stakeholders to take time to study the processes of accessing credit from BoI and assured them of the bank’s readiness to treat their applications expeditiously.
Describing the roles of agribusiness entrepreneurs in the various agricultural value chain as crucial to the transformation of the sector and by implication, improve its contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, he advocated the need for stakeholders in the agric business value chain to consistently pursue the value-addition option in commodities as recommended by the United Nations in its 2013 Report so as to improve returns on their investments. The BoI boss said: “Really, this agricbusiness will definitely promote the growth of the agro businesses sector.
I am delighted that this is not about imports, this is agribusiness and we are looking at the entire value-chain from seeds, to planting, to harvesting and storing then processing and marketing.
“So, as remarked earlier today, it is from farm to fork. So, this is really significant in the development of our dear country. At BoI, agro processing is our number one sector”, he added
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