Life Beer boosts SMEs with N12.5m

Life Continental Lager Beer, a brand of beverage from the stable of Nigerian Breweries, has initiated a programme aimed at breathing life into Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) in the South Eastern part of Nigeria.

The package, worth N12.5 million and dubbed Progress Booster, is an innovative talent hunt and mentoring programme that will empower entrepreneurs in the zone.

Speaking at the launch of the scheme in Onitsha recently, Emma Agu, marketing manager, Lager and Stout, Nigerian Breweries, said “Progress Booster is a radio reality project meant to empower 50 budding entrepreneurs that have submitted workable business proposals to the brand’s outlets in the region.”

He said the empowerment scheme, which would run from May to December 2015, was to re-launch and reinvigorate Life Continental Lager Beer in the South East market where it pioneered regional brewing and had maintained leadership of the region’s booming market.

Agu said a winner, whose proposal must have been approved by business experts, would be given N250,000 to start-up his or her business idea that won him the money while being supervised by business experts for the next three months. He said that while being supervised for three months, if the business of the budding entrepreneur was still doing well, he would be given another N250,000.

The manager averred that the business proposal could be on trading, handicraft, small scale manufacturing and provision of social services, a venture that must be able to terminate poverty in the life of its promoters.

According to him, the criteria for participating include: participants who must be above 18 years old must come from the South East and must reside within the region.

His words: “Progress Booster will see young and aspiring entrepreneurs, especially from the South East competing with each other for various prizes as the project will challenge them to draw on their Igbo heritage of doggedness, industry, enterprise and progress as a people, to conceive, package and present business ideas to a carefully selected panel of judges made up of successful entrepreneurs, accomplished professionals and academics, especially of Igbo extraction. Winners will emerge at the state levels in each of the five South East states where the project is targeted at. A final and overall winner of the project will emerge at the end of the finals.”