cocoa |
Government is also
organising a one week stakeholders' forum that will bring together over
1,000 Small, Medium Enterprises (SMEs) business men within and outside
Nigeria to brainstorm on ways of promoting the exports of homemade
Nigerian products to foreign countries.
The Minister of
State, Industry, Trade and Investment, Aisha Abubakar, dropped the hint
on Wednesday, while briefing journalists on the forthcoming Ist
International Cocoa Summit, as well as the SMEs Expo scheduled for
August 28th--31st, 2017.
"The Summit will no
doubt open up global opportunities to both local and foreign investors
to invest in the country's cocoa industry as well as developing a
national roadmap. This is with a view to achieving 500,000MT and above
production, and processing of at least 50 per cent, and consuming about
20 per cent of the annual total production by the Year 2021."
She said that the
summit is being organised by the Ministry in collaboration with the
Cocoa Association of Nigeria (CAN), and supported by International Cocoa
organisation (ICCO), African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) as well
as governments of cocoa producing states with the theme, "Cocoa, a
Strategic Commodity for National Economic Development."
The Minister also
revealed that the SMEs Expo will hold in Lagos this August. According to
her, government is taking measures to reposition the Cocoa industry,
which has become imperative, adding that, "the Cocoa sub-sector had
suffered a great neglect, which had resulted in sharp drop of annual
production from 420,000MT in 1960s to 300,000MT, and further down to
192,000MT in 2015.
Currently, Nigeria is ranked 7th in the world cocoa
production against the 4th position maintained some couple of years
back."
Also in his
remarks, the Chairman, organising committee, Ambassador Kadiri Musa,
said the committee has been given the mandate to ensure the success of
the summit.
"The SMEs Expo is
expected to encourage Nigeria Exports of goods, products to other parts
of the world, we can get a lot of foreign exchange from this."
Musa explained that
already 20 countries of the world including those from Africa are
participating in the summit, adding that only SMEs that will show case
standard products are qualified to participate.
"The Drive of the
SMEs expo is that of manufacturing, production is necessary but adding
value to a product is key. The summit will bring together local SMEs to
interact with their foreign counterparts to negotiate better businesses
and mutual transactions."
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