The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) is partnering with the Pan African Competitiveness Forum (PACF) to promote the development of a cluster of industries in the country.

The Managing Director of SMEDAN, Alhaji Mohammed Umar, made the announcement in Abuja on Tuesday when the Chairman of the Steering Committee of PACF, Prof. Azikiwe Onwualu, visited him. A statement by Mr Levi Anyikwa, the agency’s Assistant Director, Corporate Affairs, said that the objective of PACF was to promote the establishment of at least one Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprise (MSME) cluster in each of the 774 local government areas in the country.

It quoted Umar as saying that the objective of PACF was similar to SMEDAN’s One Local Government, One Product (OLOP) initiative. “With SMEDAN’s clusters in all 774 local governments and 23 Industrial Development Centers (IDCs) in the six geo-political zones of the country, the coming on board of PACF would help us tremendously to improve the standard of products made in Nigeria.”

Umar said the innovative technologies employed in improving the standard of such products must also be indigenous and not imported, explaining that PACF would collaborate with SMEDAN to organise the annual PACF conference in Nigeria.

He said the aim was to sensitise stakeholders on the need to develop means of infusing innovation and competitiveness in MSME clusters to enhance their capacities for producing competitive products and services.

Umar said the synergy between related government agencies had become necessary to enable them to record higher success rates in their respective mandates.  He added that irrespective of the number of policies formulated or money spent by government, the agencies would continue to record low impact if stakeholders did not work together.