Dan Gumm
23 May 2008
Lagos — MINISTER of Commerce and Industry, Engr. Charles U. Ugwuh has appealed to the Abia State Governnment to follow up on its pledge to establish industrial parks and clusters to provide avenue for small-scale industrialists and self-reliant individuals in the state to succeed.
Ugwuh, who was commissioning the Common Facility Centre, Aba recently, also solicited for the continued assistance of the state in ensuring support for the facility until it would be able to stand on its own, even as he pledged Federal Government's assistance in whichever way possible to clusters that might come up in the state.
In his address, Abia State Governor, Chief Theodore Orji expressed his willingness to ensure that centre takes off smoothly and become self-reliant. Gov. Orji said his resolve to establish industrial parks and clusters in the state would be pursued to logical conclusion.
He said Abia State would cooperate with the Federal Government, NEPC, and UNIDO to ensure that a proper management stucture was put in place to make the centre self-sustained, assuring the Leather and Garment Associations of his government determination to uplift the fortunes of the sub-sector.
Background to the project
At the 14th National Council on Industry held from March 3 - 7, 2003, at Lokoja, Kogi State, a memorandum was submitted by the Bank of Industry (BOI). On the basis of the memorandum, stakeholders in industrialisation and capacity building in non-oil sector were invited to undertake joint initiatives with UNIDO to develop Common Facility Centres (CFCs) in identified production clusters around the country.
As a stakeholder in capacity building for small and medium scale producers of exportable non-oil products in Nigeria, the NEPC was asked to support in providing the structure for the first CFC project, believing that it was in line with the Sectoral National Capacity Building Programme which Nigeria was jointly promoting with development partners.
The programme, an initiative of the UNDP, is aimed at upgrading technical skills and entrepreneurial capacities of nigeria's SMEs for export production through the cluster concept.
The project focuses on six industrial sub-sectors, viz: Footwear Leather Product, Garments, Woodwork/Furniture, Pottery/Cermics, Electrical/Electronics and Mental Works. The key strategy for the project is to establish sectoral and geographical concentration of enterprises faced with common opportunities and challenges and with the primary objective of exploiting external economies through collective effort and sharing common facilities for enhanced processing of their products.
The CFC is to serve as a centre of excellence for capacity building and provision of cutting edge technology for competitiveness enhancement.
The similarity of the CFC model to the Export Production Village (EPV) model of the NEPC programmes is strong justification for the NEPC's involvement alongside other stakeholders such as Federal Ministry of Commerce and Industry, UNIDO and the Abia State Government.
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