By Aliyu DANLADI
The Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita, on Monday, urged stakeholders in industrial sector to synergise to sustain industrialisation process in the country.
She made the call at the 2018 Entrepreneurship Development and Leadership Development Summit in Abuja.
The three-day summit was organised by Institute of Professional Industrialists and Management Development (IPIMD), Women International Networking (WIN) and Nigeria Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME).
Oyo- Ita, who was represented by Mrs Dame Walson-Jack, Permanent Secretary in the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, said that collective efforts by stakeholders to sustain industrialisation in Nigeria would rapidly boost the national economy.
She added that “synergy will attract foreign direct investment to help build up our productive capacity.
“It will also lay solid foundation for rapid and sustainable industrialisation in states of Nigeria and move us away from predominant consumption to predominant production nation.
“We must rebuild the image of this country to actualise self-reliance.”
She said investment in Research and Development ought to be escalated to meet global competitiveness in industrial and agricultural production driven by creativity and innovation.
She observed that many companies in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector were unable or incapable of investing in any research work as a result of paucity of fund.
The IPIMD Secretary, Board of Trustees, Mr Paschal Harry, said that efforts were being made to assist SME operators to access loans of low rate interests from banks.
“We have started discussing with some financial institutions. They have agreed to give N10,000 to 500,000 SME operators.
“These banks include Fidelity Bank, Micro Finance Bank, among others. We have just to be careful in taking the risk,” he said.
According to him, as a role for SME industrialist, Research and Development will become critical in the quest for innovation of new products that will be built on competitiveness and competency.
He added that globalisation would further lead to forced closure of inefficient plants, while local production would lead to cheaper imports.
