Ogun empowers 10,000 small businesses, plans industrial parks

As part of efforts to stimulate the economy and improve on the ease of doing business in the state, the Ogun state government has begun an intensively comprehensive training and empowerment of about 10,000 operators of the micro, small and medium enterprises.

The MSMEs training and empowerment program which is the second in the series of economic interventions to the operators of MSMEs was already held in mAs part of efforts to stimulate the economy and improve on the ease of doing business in the state, the Ogun state government has begun an intensively comprehensive major cities of the state, including Abeokuta, Ijebu-Ode, Sagamu as the remaining beneficiaries are expected to be covered in Ado-Odo/Ota and Isheri/Akute next year.

Declaring the Business Clinic open at the Centenary Hall, Ake, Abeokuta, Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun said the MSMEs Business Clinic is organized to address the challenges facing MSMEs in order to ease the burden on entrepreneurs in the state as the state is ready to create industrial parks in order to guarantee the economic linkage of manufacturing industries and MSMEs.

Represented by Dapo Okubadejo, the Chief Economic Adviser and Commissioner for Finance, the governor stated that the present administration is already helping the MSMEs sub-sector through the facilitation of access to finance, market linkages, provision of MSMEs Park and the creation of electronic marketplace.

“Our goal is to ensure this critical sector is engaged proactively and in a sustainable manner. Our role is to ensure Micro businesses grow to become small businesses and the small businesses become large businesses.

Read also: Ondo, Ogun allocate land, distribute seedlings to renew cocoa economy in Southwest

“For the first time in the history of this State and the country as a whole, we are creating a MSMEs Park strictly dedicated to MSMEs alone. We are not going to allow any large company to come there, and the reason for this is to provide shared facilities like power.

“The biggest challenge of MSMEs in Nigeria, in addition to financing, access to market is lack of infrastructure. Their average cost of production is higher than it should be. By providing the Park and putting this infrastructure in place there, we are going to help them to reduce their cost of production and make them more competitive.

“We are also working with BOI as well to do counterpart matching fund scheme so that we can extend the credit to these people at low cost and with fewer conditions”, he said.

Also, Kikelomo Longe, Commissioner for Industry, Trade, and Investment, stated that the Business Clinic which holds is targeted at helping 10,000 entrepreneurs start and scale up their businesses.

She added that participants involved in specialized areas like Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Agro-Processing, Non-Metallic and Basic Minerals, Fashion/Textile and Beauty Care would benefit from the Clinic which would also be held in Ijebu-Ode, Sagamu, Akute and Ota.

Longe added that the Government is creating several Economic Development Clusters in strategic areas in Abeokuta, Remo, Ijebu, Atan-Agbara-Ota, Magboro and Imeko-Afon/Ayetoro.

The Commissioner called on entrepreneurs to take advantage of the free business premises registration window given by the present administration by registering via https://businesspermit.ogunstate.gov.ng.