Lagos, July 13, 2023 – Twenty states in Nigeria have expressed interest in accessing taking $500 million loan in international financing to create agro-industrial zones in their states.
Akinwunmi Adesina, the President of the African Development Bank, said this in a speech at the annual BusinessDay CEO Forum in Lagos.
He said Nigeria must make agriculture a major wealth-creating sector and financing is key.
Adesina said the African Development Bank, International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the Islamic Development Bank approved $540 million loan to Nigeria to develop the first set of Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones in nine states last year.
He said additional 20 state governments had expressed interest to be engaged for the second phase of the programme.
Adeshina, however, did not reveal the states that have shown interest in the loan.
“It is time to take bold policy measures to drive the structural transformation of agriculture, with infrastructure and spatial economic policies that will help turn the rural economies of Nigeria away from being zones of economic misery to new zones of economic prosperity,” Adesina said.
The AfDB boss said the key to this is the development of Special Agro-industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs) across the country.
These will be zones enabled with infrastructure and logistics, to support dairy, tomato, maize, and ginger from Kaduna State, rice, tomatoes, groundnuts, and sesame oil from Kano State, livestock in Kwara State, cassava, rice, poultry, and fisheries in Ogun State, cassava, soybeans, and rice from Oyo State.
“It is time to take bold policy measures to drive the structural transformation of agriculture, with infrastructure and spatial economic policies that will help turn the rural economies of Nigeria away from being zones of economic misery to new zones of economic prosperity,” Adesina said. (GBN)
