The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), has advised federal and state governments to adequately equip technology incubation centres to meet the needs of small scale industrialists.
The LCCI Director-General, Mr Muda Yusuf,gave the advice in Lagos while speaking at a forum of media forum, Sunday on the state of the economy since the inception of the current administration.
He said that, the incubation centres served as places where small scale industrialists gained production advantages by pooling resources to reduce overhead and operation costs.
“The incubation centres are a good way to help small scale industrialists to leverage on the use of power and latest technology transfer in manufacturing.
“In fact, it is an economically sound way of getting the over 300,000 small and medium scale manufacturers to reduce operations costs, especially with power and cost of machinery.
“Unfortunately, some entrepreneurs at most of the incubation centres visited recently have to make use of their own generating sets because the power supply to the centre was insufficient.
“Some of them also have to make use of their own machinery because the centres have been unable to provide enough for the variation in the production line for the industrialists.
“For instance, a person produces corn flour, while another produces soya corn flour, because of the sensitivity of soya, there will be a need to create another production line, which if not readily available, will affect the production,” he said.
Yusuf, urged the government to involve the private sector in this area of investment “as it is a means for the nation to leverage on the strength of SMEs which are able to create more jobs under their belts”.
He said that the current administration was doing a lot to provide enabling environment for SMEs lately.
“We laud the initiatives because these will also go a long way in boosting investors’ confidence in the economy,” he said.