Business
ABUCIMA, Foreign Firms Partner On Abia Cement Factory
The Abuja Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ABUCCIMA) says it will build a cement factory
in Abia in partnership with foreign firms and the state government.
The Director-General of ABUCCIMA, Dr Solomon Nyagba, said
this on Friday at an event to mark Abia Special Day at the ongoing 7th Abuja
International Trade Fair.
According to Nyagba, arrangements are almost concluded as
work will start very soon. He said that Abia was investment-friendly as the
state government was ready to provide assistance to investors.
“Abia is a good place for investment because the government
is willing to provide good incentives to investors.
“The state has huge deposits of limestone for cement at
Arochukwu and we and our partners from abroad are working at actualising a
cement factory there. “Limestone exploration will start in three months time.’’
Nyagba said the chamber was making serious efforts to transform Abia from a
civil service state to a commercial hub and private sector-driven territory.
The Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Mr Samson Orji,
said Abia had become an investor’s destination. He said that Aba, the
commercial hub of the state, had become “the city with the least number of
unemployed people in the world as everybody was engaged in one enterprise or
the other’’. Orji said that efforts were being made to “establish desks for
manufactures in Aba so that their products will be branded in their names’’.
According to him, the state has a one-stop shop to ease registration of
investors among other incentives. In his speech, the Permanent Secretary,
Ministry of Commerce, Mr Okechukwu Aguwa, said the state was in a hurry to
develop hence the provision of economic and social infrastructure.
“We are building industrial centres, industrial clusters and
housing estates to impact on the lives of the people.’’ Aguwa noted that most
goods produced in Aba were of export standards.
The Chairman, Abia House of Assembly Committee on Commerce,
Mrs Blessing Nwagba, said the body would continue to make laws that would boost
commerce and industry in the state.