Made-in-Abia exhibition unveils hidden abilities

The maiden edition of the ‘Made in Abia Products Exhibition’ ended at the weekend in Umuahia, the Abia State capital. The exhibition was targeted at showcasing the ingenuity of small and medium industrialists in the state and especially Aba, its commercial hub.

Abia is known for hosting the highest number of small and medium scale industrialists in the country. Majority of the industrialists, however, operate in isolation, which prompted the government to use the exhibition to bring them to the limelight.

This is where Abia has comparative advantage over other states in the country. So, the government wants to stamp that superiority by exposing hidden treasures in the state. Nine sectors participated in the exhibition: metal and machine fabrication, leather and allied products, garment, wood works and carpentry, food and beverages, hair stylists and cosmetologists, auto mechanics and chemical and allied sartorial group.

Majority of these industrialists lack exposure, which is not good for their businesses. Now, the administration wants to bring them out through this exhibition so they can expose their talents to the public and thereby attract patronage to themselves.

The thinking is that almost every house on Ngwa Road has a factory in it, but the operators do not come out. Even as the state government has initiated this now, some of them have not seen the reason why they should be part of it. Some see it as a waste of time, but the organisers are trying to convince them, because change is constant.

Considering the importance of this sector to the economic development of the state and country, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in conjunction with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council and the Abia State government established a Common Facility Centre (CFC) in Aba, to provide modern machinery to aid the leather and garment producers, first of its kind in Nigeria.

The centre, which was estimated to have gulped over $300,000 is aimed at upgrading technical skills and entrepreneurial capacities of small and medium enterprises in Aba for export production through the cluster concept.

The key strategy for the project was to establish sectoral and geographical concentration of enterprises faced with common opportunities and challenges and with the primary objective of exploiting external economies through collective effort and sharing common facilities for enhanced processing of their products.

The CFC is also to serve as a centre of excellence for capacity building and provision of cutting edge technology for competitiveness enhancement. The Aba leather products cluster was identified as having the highest density in Nigeria, which consists of over 11,000 enterprises with 23,000 regular employees and an annual turnover of $100 million.

It is similar to the Export Production Village (EPV) model of the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), a strong justification for the NEPC’s involvement in the programme alongside other stakeholders such as the Federal Ministry of Trade & Investment, UNIDO, and the Abia State government.

To complete the project, the Abia State government, provided the land, water and electricity, the NEPC built the structure, supplied and installed two 250 KVA stand-by generators.

This development negates the expectation of the Export Promotion Council, one of the executors of the project, that Nigeria can earn N320 billion annually from leather products, if the centre is fully utilised by the leather producing cluster group in the state.

The executive director, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), A.M Lawal, observed at the commissioning that the leather sector in 2006 contributed well over N28 billion ($230 million), representing 22 percent of the non-oil export earnings. According to him, that amount increased in 2007, as the sector contributed N37.8 billion ($300 million) to the non-export earning of Nigeria. Consequently, he further observed that Nigeria would earn more than N320 billion from finished leather products using the CFC model.

Commending the Ministry of Trade & Investment, initiators of the cluster programme, Lawal affirmed that the initiative would definitely spur industrialisation in the leather sector of Nigeria. As a stakeholder in capacity building for small and medium scale producers of exportable non-oil products in Nigeria, the NEPC was asked to support in providing the structure for the first CFC project.

The key strategy for the project was to establish sectoral and geographical concentration of enterprises faced with common opportunities and challenges and with the primary objective of exploiting external economies through collective effort and sharing common facilities for enhanced processing of their products.

The CFC is to also serve as a centre of excellence for capacity building and provision of cutting edge technology for competitiveness enhancement. It was jointly executed by Abia State government that provided land, water and electricity, the NEPC that built the structure, supplied and installed two 250 KVA stand-by generators, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation that supplied and installed the machines, provided training and the technical expertise required for the take-off of the centre, while the Federal Ministry of Trade & Investment provided policy guidelines and coordination for the success of the project.

It's just that they have such a lame governor.

This is a welcomed development

maybe that is why nnaji sited geometric power in aba

asha 80: maybe that is why nnaji sited geometric power in aba

T.A dey claim geometric ownership nah