Minister assures women in business of govt. support
By Emmanuella Anokam
The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment has advised the Association of Nigeria Women Business Network to take advantage of various Federal Government’s business intervention programmes for expansion.
Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment gave the advice while addressing a delegation of the association on Thursday in his office.
The intervention programmes, according to the minister, include the MSMEs Survival Fund and the N50 billion Export Expansion Facility.
The minister, in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Ifedayo Sayo, said that the ministry also had various gender-based programmes for them to key into.
He cited the ministry’s programmes as Gender Initiative for Commodity and Export under the Commodity and Export Department in the ministry and Gender Initiative in the Department of Trade, which he said could assist them to grow their businesses.
Adebayo advised them to come up with their demands on how the ministry could assist them to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) for the good of the association.
The Coordinator of the association, Mrs Modupe Oyekunle, had presented the minister with a list of challenges affecting the businesses of their members.
Shs said that government must take conscious effort at addressing the challenges of insecurity in the country.
Oyekunle said that some members of the association lost hundreds of millions to the violence that trailed the #Endsars protest in Lagos in 2020.
“Besides, some of our members who are farmers could not access their farmland due to the activities of kidnappers and bandits who daily invaded farms and destroyed their crops,” she said.
The coordinator also complained of epileptic power supply and access to credit facilities.
According to her, though the government is addressing the issue of infrastructure in the country, it should scale up its activities for the good of all Nigerians.
Oyekunle said many countries were already preparing to take advantage of the AfCFTA and were offering their citizens cheap credit facilities.
She warned that high interest rates in the country could pose a challenge to the ability of Nigerian businessmen and women to compete with their foreign counterparts..(NAN)
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