The Jigawa State Government and Bank of Industry (BOI), on Tuesday signed a N6 billion partnership agreement to facilitate industrial development in the state.
Gov. Umar Namadi, while signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Dutse, said of the N6 billion partnership agreement, N4 billion would be kept as matching funds, while the remaining N2 billion would be used as “managing funds”.
The governor said the MoU would help the prospective enterprises to easily access soft loans for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
“All relevant state government agencies are being engaged to enlighten Jigawa citizens and support them to access the opportunities in the bank,” he said.
Earlier, the Managing Director of the Bank, Dr Olasupo Olusi, had said N2 billion would be kept as the matching fund while another N2 billion would be used as the managing funds.
Olusi, who was represented by the Executive Director, Corporate Services, Mr Usen Effiong, said “With the signing of this agreement, Jigawa has technically expanded access to its manufacturing sector and other relevant value chains in the 27 local government areas.
“Under this arrangement, Jigawa will provide N2 billion and the BOI will match it with N2 billion. The state is also providing N2 billion for the establishment of the managed funds.
“With this MoU, Jigawa has joined the league of over 40 strategic partners in BOI to bring development and finance services to its people, especially manufacturing industries.
“The step will support industrial value chain activities and reduce dependency on the neighbouring states for finished goods,” he said.
He said that the bank had also provided a regional intervention fund of N2 billion in the state branch of BOI for regional companies in Jigawa, in addition to N2.5 billion on the pipeline.
Olusi said that the bank had provided other special funds for industrial development in rural areas in an effort to mitigate rural-urban migration.
“We want people to move from urban to rural areas for industrial development; that is why we have put a maximum of N10 million per one business entity who wishes to move to rural areas for industrial activities.
“Already, we have 1,600 applications from Jigawa,” he said.
