We will work with Nigerian SMEs to boost export – VP Osinbajo

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo restated the readiness of the Federal Government under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari to partner with SMEs and local exporters to address some of the bottlenecks and obstacles in their business, particularly access to finance.

He spoke with reporters today after going round various exhibition stands at the on-going SMEs Conference 2016 in Abuja.

The Vice President said,

“As far as I am concerned, this is very exciting. It is very good see so many Nigerian entrepreneurs in agro-business and the sheer creativity and all of what you are seeing here, the great enthusiasm. It is so interesting to see so many people who are investing in agro-business, working hard every day.

I have seen an incredible variety of agro- business entrepreneurship here today and I am really excited about all these.

I think that one of the key things that we have seen are some of the bottlenecks especially in financing some of these products and some of what these people are doing. 
And so we are looking at how to remove the bottlenecks in many of the situations that we see, so certainly we are going to be working on this.

Myself and the Hon. Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, we’ve been round and we’ve seen for ourselves some of what needs to be done and one thing that we have assured a lot of those who are exhibiting here today is that we are going to be working with them day-by-day to see that they achieve all of their objectives. 

One of the main objectives of course is that they will be able to export, they will be able to export in large quantities and we have an advantage now with the Naira situation, as a major export advantage.

So I think that we must take advantage of that and several of these local producers are taking advantage (of the situation of the Naira) and they are able to export at very competitive prices, so we are looking forward to even bigger export levels … so I think what has happened here is just incredible.”

Prof. Osinbajo went round the exhibition stands in the company of the Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Mrs Aisha Abubakar.

The SME Conference 2016 holding at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Abuja is themed “Businesses and Franchises,” and jointly hosted by the Nigerian-American Chambers of Commerce, Kaduna State government, and the Embassy of the United States of America.

Laolu Akande