Ondo State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Chief Ayo Abiola has reiterated the government’s commitment to boosting industrialisation through support to small and medium scale enterprise as a way of enhancing employment generation for teeming youths in the state.
He stated this in Akure, when members of the Technology Incubation Centre and Ondo State Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (OSCCIMA), Ondo city chapter paid him a courtesy visit. The Commissioner said the ministry will re-examine existing policies and create new ones that will encourage small, medium Enterprises to develop and as such midwife the state industrialisation process.
Abiola said the ministry may not engage in production but will facilitate production processes. He said the development will gear up employment creation as human services will be needed in making the products, operation of machines; and incentives will be improved upon to attract investors to the state.
He said industrialisation opens the door for solving unemployment, encourage entrepreneurs and have ideas developed into production, which will in turn lead to economic multiplying effects, stressing that the Governor is determined to bring back the state’s old glory.
He commended the creative initiative of the SMEs that is strategically needed to prefer solution to existing industrial challenges, noting that the economy has limited the government wishes in carrying out several programmes.
Responding, the Pioneer Vice President, OSCCIMA, Ondo City Chapter, Sir Ayo Akingbule, who described the Commissioner as an achiever, said there is need to revive the livestock sector of the state which was noted for several successes in the 1980s, stressing that there is need to provide policies that will boost industrialisation in the state.
On the other hand, the Ag. Centre Manager, Technology Incubation Centre, Mr. Wiyep Self Fadom, promised consistent cooperation with the government in order to achieve desired goal, stressing that the Centre will continue to boost the state economy and has assisted in creating about 17 SMEs specialised in 25 professions.