Akwa Ibom State has attracted a $30 million syringe factory, which has the capacity to produce 400 million to one billion syringes annually.
Jubilee Syringe Manufacturing Company Limited (JSM), a foreign direct investment into Akwa Ibom, is the largest in Africa, bigger than a syringe plant in South Africa, which has the capacity to produce just 95 million syringes per annum, according to Charles Udoh, Akwa Ibom State information commissioner.
“Nigeria consumes six billion syringes each year and we import all of them. Interestingly, the only syringe factory in Africa before now is in South Africa and that factory has 95 million syringe capacity,” Udoh told journalists in Lagos.
“So upfront we have a market. We built a syringe plant, which, at the initial capacity, can produce 400 million syringes a year,” Udoh said.
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The state has also attracted a metering manufacturing plant, a coconut plant and flour milling investment.
The commissioner said the investments came into the state as a result of government’s seriousness with reforming the doing business environment as well as infrastructure developments happening across Akwa Ibom.
“We are also very passionate about infrastructure. We invest heavily in security of the environment, because we know that for you to get investors to come, they must feel secure,” he said.
“Why are we constructing and spending heavily on roads? We need to evacuate these syringes because heavy trucks will come in. If you don’t have good roads, you won’t be able to evacuate the syringes.
“We ensure that the road networks we are constructing are not one-directional. They are networks of roads linking the industrial and agricultural hubs,” the commissioner said.
He explained that the government of Udom Gabriel Emmanuel has ensured that cost of doing business in the state is minimised for those industries as much as possible, which is why industries are concentrated in particular locations in the state.
“We also have the electric metering and metering box factory, which is the first to produce digital electric meters in Nigeria,” Udoh said.
“If you take the syringe factory in isolation, you find out that beyond the direct employment, it is an opportunity for distributorship and service provisions and, even within the local communities around, people there can aspire to be landlords. They guy who sells recharge cards can aspire to sell more recharge cards. It creates a huge value chain, which impacts on the economy,” the image maker said.
“The syringe factory and the flour mill are concentrated in the same area. The reason is simple: Cost of doing business. It costs us the same amount to provide power. It costs us the same amount of power, security, the same road networks for the same factories within the same locality. So it makes it easy for those companies to lower their overhead costs,” he said.
He said the Ikot Abasi area is earmarked as the industrial hub and hosts the Ibom Deep Sea Port, coconut refinery and plantations, adding that the pockets of investments which the state government has attracted will create huge opportunities.
“Our dream is to ensure that Akwa Ibom State becomes Nigeria’s industrial and tourist hubs. You and I know how problematic the power sector has been. But since we commissioned the injector station, the first of them, power within Uyo area has increased to 18 hours on a daily basis. You know in Nigeria, it is a miracle, but we have shown it is possible,” he stated.
“We are building two new injection stations–one at the airport to feed the airport and its immediate environment and another one to feed the industrial city. We believe we can set the pace and prove that these things are doable. Last year and the first half of this year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) listed Akwa Ibom as number two in terms of attracting FDI. We are only behind Lagos State. That shows that our industrial strides are fully on steam. We are not just bringing industries to make up the numbers; we are looking at opportunities,” he said.
ODINAKA ANUDU
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