By Favour Nnbaugwu

Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi has said that his government is ready to partner with the federal government to invest N10 billion in Export Processing Zone (EPZs) located in the state that has the potential to attract foreign investors to the state.

The N10billion, Senator Ajimobi who was at the office of the Minister of Trade and Investment in Abuja recently, said would not only enable the state to provide the enabling environment for foreign investment to thrive but avail investors the necessary infrastructure including vast hectares of land when utilized could create two million jobs in Oyo state.

He said, “If we want to quantify our readiness to attract investors to Oyo State, we are ready to spend as much as N5 billion to N10billion in order to change the socio-economy of Oyo state”

While explaining the reason behind his visit to Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, Ajimobi siad, “We have come with the hope that we can transform and reposition the economic development of our state”

Ccording to him, “Oyo state has always been known as pacesetters’ but in recent times, the state has deteriorated to almost a level of decadence both socially and economically that l believe it is almost at edge of the cliff which can roll over at the push of a finger”.

“Some of us now believe that with the state’s vast agricultural potentials, we must emphasise and concentrate on value added policies and agricultural system that is value added since 70 per cent of our people earn their living from agriculture”

He was optimistic that the Ministry of Trade and Investment has a lot to offer Oyo state in achieving its goals of endearing foreign direct investment to that state. “We believe that your ministry can help us attract investment opportunities to our state”

However, the Oyo state governor said that his administration had put all necessary steps in place to establish EPZ in order to have a free trade zones that would command large number of investors to that state.

“We like to promote our transnational border market like the one we have in Okeodo which shares border with the Republic of Benin”, he said. He stated further, “We look forward to a situation where we can have some form of synergy as investment body with foreign investors that are interested in mining”

On his part, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, Minister of Trade and Investment said the ministry would collaborate with the Oyo State government in implementing its initiative on value addition for agro-allied industries as part of its mandate to generate employment and create wealth.

He added that the ministry would work closely with the state governments across the country to attract genuine foreign investors into various sectors of the economy.

According to him, “We are looking at the area of value addition in agricultural produce in addition to marketing these value added products. The ministry will partner Oyo state government in the implementation of the Nigeria’s agro-business, agro-industry development initiative.

He stated, “The programme is aimed at developing agro-businesses in all parts of the country. We are working with development partners on this and very soon, we will be unveiling that plan in terms of our strategy on how to grow agro-businesses in Nigeria”.