Category: News & Events

The Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga recently commissioned the Shongai Packaging Plastics Industries Limited, a state-of-the-art, flexible packaging and printing plant; and the Shongai Recycling Plant, both located in Sango-Otta, Ogun State. The two plants were financed by the Bank of Industry (BOI) and are owned by the SONA Group.

The acting Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Bank of Industry, Mr. Waheed Olagungu, who represented the Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment at the ceremony, commended the board and management of the SONA Group for their implicit confidence in the Nigerian economy, as evidenced by their considerable investments in Nigeria over the past three decades.

He advised the Group, through its Chairman, Mr. A. K. Mirchandani, to deepen its foothold in the Nigerian economy by aligning its business development strategies with the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) that was launched by President Goodluck Jonathan in February 2014. This, the acting MD/CEO, BOI, said, would enable the Group reap higher returns on current and future investments in Nigeria and subsequently create more jobs for Nigerians, amongst other development impact on the national economy.

Responding, the SONA Group Chairman, Mr. A. K. Mirchandani disclosed that as a manifestation of the Group’s strong faith in the Nigerian economy, the Group would be commissioning three more plants before the end of the year, which will further deepen its investment drive in the Nigerian manufacturing sector in line with Nigeria’s economic development aspirations. According to him, the Group plans to increase its total investment in Nigeria by N200 million over the next three years in addition to the cumulative sum of N125 billion that had been invested since it commenced operations in Nigeria in 1981.

The Chairman also confirmed that the Group had benefitted immensely from the Federal Government’s initiatives for the manufacturing sector, including the CBN Intervention Funds, reserving special mention for the Bank of Industry. In his words, “Bank of Industry has always played a continued modeling role, activating and motivating themselves and they have always supported the industry because if not for them, it is impossible for the company to sustain the cost of its operations.”

The SONA Group Nigeria is a conglomerate of different companies with focus on manufacturing that currently employs more than 2,000 workers. Its recently commissioned ultramodern flexible packaging plant with 5-layer blown film that has been described as the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa was established to make made-in-Nigeria products globally competitive due to attractive and durable packaging while the Shongai Recycling Plant was established to collect plastic garbage from the environment and use them as 100% re-processed materials for production of plastic pallets and sundry products for local use and export to ECOWAS countries.

The Bank of Industry (BOI) is collaborating with the All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA) to improve structures in the country’s creative and entertainment industries, with a view to increasing the economic benefits that harnessing these industries would bring to Nigeria.
Stating this at a press briefing in Lagos, the acting Managing Director, BOI, Mr. Waheed Olagunju, said this would aid both industries and the country in general to take full advantage of the abundant talents the country has in these areas, as well as save the nation’s huge foreign exchange spent on acquiring structures and facilities including studios.
Mr. Olagunju further pointed out that notwithstanding the little attention given to the entertainment sector, it still contributed about 1.42 per cent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“In BOI’s paradigm shift, we have paid considerable attention to the creative industry because we are aware of its potential and contributions to the Nigerian economy under the rebased figured released recently; the industry contributes about 1.42 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP and this is without support. This shows that there is a lot more to be achieved if given the necessary support,” he said.
Regarding the structures needed to support the industry, Olagunju made the call to foreign and private investors to consider investments in the creative and entertainment industries, stating that it would help to create job opportunities as well as support other value chains in the sector.
He said, “We are assuring you that we will look at your proposals and evaluate them to see how best we can support this process. We have talents in Nigeria but what we are lacking are mainly structures. The National Copyright Commission is doing its best to ensure that intellectual property right is protected.
“If we get things right, this partnership will not only help us to conserve foreign exchange but will also help us to attract foreign exchange and put up structures that are of world-class standards.”
In their response, the Executive Producer, AFRIMA, Mr. Mike Dada, said the objective of AFRIMA was to create an opportunity to communicate the identity of Africa and fashion out means to increase the industry’s contribution to national GDPs across Africa.
“AFRIMA is in partnership with the Africa Union because we observed that the creative sector has tremendous impact on Africa’s GDP which we have barely scratched its surface. We are also calling for support from both the public and private sectors in this regard,” he added.
The Director, Brand Communications and Sponsorship, AFRIMA, Mrs. Matlou Tsotetsi, said that part of AFRIMA’s effort to drive growth in the sector had been its quest to get partnerships from the private and public sectors to key into the initiative.

The Bank of Industry (BOI) Limited has said that it is constantly innovating its processes to ensure that funding support is available to MSMEs.

This is according to the General Manager, SME, Mr. Abdul-Ganiyu Mohammed at the tripartite meeting between the Bank and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), its partnering agencies on the National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP).

This statement was made in response to the concerns raised by the Industrial Training Fund’s representative that loans provided by the Bank of Industry could not be accessed by the graduates of their skills acquisition training programmes because the conditions were too stringent.

Quick to dispel these concerns, Mr. Mohammed said that the Bank had already tried to address the issue of access to finance through its Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) and the cooperative lending schemes, which de-emphasised the request for collateral and instead, advocates the use of guarantors as security. He added that other schemes are still being considered, and once research can confirm their viability, these schemes for easy access to finance from the Bank of Industry would also be made known to the public. He further noted that the Bank recognised the different capacities of MSMEs and this has informed the classification of businesses either as Limited Liability, Enterprise, and Business Name; with each of these requiring different requirements to access loans.

Mr. Mohammed also pointed out that the reason for the requirements was just to ensure that only fitting beneficiaries would enjoy access to funding, especially since the requirements only helped to provide proof of the practice of good corporate governance by the beneficiaries, and to ensure that they could repay the loans they were getting.

Under the NEDEP programme, Mr. Mohammed pointed out that the bank was committed to playing its role as part of the trident agency partnership to actualise the objectives of the programme. He said however, that access to finance, which is one leg of the tripod execution strategy of the programme, could only come after skills acquisition (to be provided by the ITF) and entrepreneurship development (which is the responsibility of SMEDAN) had been acquired by the prospective beneficiaries. He therefore called for increased synergy between the partnering agencies towards achieving the objectives of the NEDEP programme, one of his suggestions being that BOI should be informed of training programmes by both ITF and SMEDAN so that the Bank could provide resource persons who would train on how beneficiaries could access finance.

Agreements at the meeting included the need for a sensitisation programme for prospective beneficiaries to educate them on the NEDEP programme, with reference to how they stood to benefit, and what they could benefit. Also, a consensus was reached that more meetings of this nature were needed to build the synergy among the partnering agencies and address any knowledge or communication gaps that may exist on how all three could work to achieve the objectives of NEDEP.

The tripartite meeting with Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), and the Bank of Industry (BOI) on loan applications received from Lagos State Government cooperative societies under the NEDEP programme is one of the many meetings designed to deepen the relationship among the agencies working on the NEDEP programme. Other attendees at the meeting include the Regional Manager, South, Mr. Balarabe Hassan, the Senior Manager, SME/Managed Funds, Mr. Ganiyu Jimoh, the Senior Manager, Stratgic Planning, Engr. Kola Adewole, the Zonal Manager, Lagos, Mr. Monday Ejigbo, Deputy Manager, Lagos Zonal Office, Miss Marian Hart, all of BOI; Engr. Ekpe Cletus, Mrs. Oluwafunmilayo Coker, Mr. Abdul-Rasaq Adeniran, all of the ITF; Mrs. Olusola Oluwole from SMEDAN; and Mr. Ajina Adesina, an independent consultant representing the Lagos State Government cooperative societies.

Bank of Industry, BoI has put the total loan disbursement across various sectors of the Nigeria economy within two years at N870.44bn and recorded more 53.4 per cent growth in its income in 2012, its chairman Shareholders Committee, Bank of Industry, BoI, Alhaji Muhammed Dikwa has disclosed.

Speaking at the 53rd Annual General Meeting of the bank in Abuja last weekend, Dikwa said that loans and advances to the real sector of the economy and other comprehensive incomes accounted for the performance. According to the chairman, the gross income rose from N10.01 billion in 2011 to N15.35 billion in 2012.

Giving the breakdown of the N870.44bn disbursed across the various sectors of the country’s economy within the years under review, he said that the “agri-business value chain, including rice, cassava and the cotton, textile and garment sub-sectors” benefitted N53.3billion while the entertainment sector gulped N337.60million. Other sectors that have benefitted from the bank’s loan disbursement also include, Aviation (181bn), Textile (50.39bn), Rice (N2.8bn), NAC fund (N9.74bn) Cement (N0.719bn) and Restructuring and Refinancing Fund (N229.18bn).

Dikwa said that the bank surpassed its record of 2011 in terms of development loans and advances to small businesses in the country. He also stated that “impairment charges” rose from N40.048 million in 2011 to N6.989 billion in 2012 and attributed the achievement to the adoption of International Financial Reporting System by the bank.

The chairman, however, announced that the bank’s profit after tax dropped from N1.85 in 2011 to N1.10 in 2012, describing the decrease as “drastic”. He said that in spite of the drop in profit “which is mainly attributed to IFRS adjustment, the modest sum of N178, 642, 300 is being proposed as dividend to be paid to shareholders.”

He expressed optimism that the bank would record tremendous improvement in its operations in 2013, saying that it had remained focused in the transformation of the country’s economy. The chairman noted that the bank made substantial investment in building the capacities of its staff in key professional areas, including investment risk evaluation, monitoring and portfolio management skills. He said that the bank carried out intervention in “Agri-business” in 2012, as demonstration of its role as a key driver of the transformation agenda of the present administration.

He added that the bank, in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, provided technical and financial support to prospective investors in alternative and renewable energy, and entertainment subsector with N337.60 million. “The necessity of these interventions holds sway in view of the fact that the non-oil sector drives real Gross Domestic Product, GDP growth in the economy”, he said.

Foremost global infrastructure and technology company, General Electric (GE), and the Bank of Industry have in cooperation announced plans to create affordable access to funding to the tune of over N81 billion ($500 million) for the small and medium enterprises (SME) infrastructure sector. The agreement would see Bank of Industry and GE providing access to finance to qualified SMEs in critical sectors including healthcare, power, and transportation.

At a media briefing at the BOI corporate head office attended by the visiting global chairman of GE, Jeff Immelt, the Managing Director of BOI, Ms. Evelyn Oputu, said, “the initiative is intended to support the establishment, modernization and expansion of infrastructure and high technology SMEs.”

She added that the fund is also expected to make available an enhanced competitive platform for benefitting companies to attract, recruit and retain highly skilled Nigerian talent currently in management and other leadership positions with leading organisations in and outside Nigeria, adding that GE and BOI anticipate that the programme will also attract additional foreign direct investment into the infrastructure sector.

The global Chairman of GE, Jeff Immelt, expressed delight with the commitment of stakeholders to address the infrastructure shortage in the country and said that tackling the problem would help the country to begin to harness its great potentials for job creation and poverty alleviation, while the president of GE Nigeria, Lazarus Angbazo, lauded BOI for supporting GE’s commitment to working with relevant stakeholders to address infrastructural challenges across sectors.

Angbazo said: “This engagement is in line with GE’s country-to-company agreement with the Federal Government of Nigeria across critical sectors of healthcare, transportation and power.

The global Chairman of GE, Jeff Immelt, expressed delight with the commitment of stakeholders to address the infrastructure deficit in the country which has great potentials for job creation and poverty alleviation.

GE Capital businesses help meet the financial needs of over 100 million customers across the globe, with products and services that range from consumer lending to financial solutions for businesses of all sizes. GE Capital also develops strategic partnerships and joint ventures that leverage GE’s industry-specific expertise in aviation, energy, infrastructure, healthcare and media to capitalize on opportunities.