Abia state Government and Turkish government have signed a deal on the importation of large capacity output machines and equipment for product in 2016.
Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, said his trip to Turkey is set to yield huge benefit as more than 50,000 artisans are to be trained. The deal was signed at the Turkish Embassy in Abuja on Tuesday, September 27th, 2016.
This new move is expected to create job opportunities for youths and develop made in Nigeria product for global distribution.
Governor Ikpeazu expressed optimism in the partnership and said it would soon start yielding result.
“I thank the Turkish embassy for allowing Abia to be a trail blazer once again. In September lastyear, I embarked on my first journey to Turkey. We feel that the best thing was to begin to learn from Turkey. Abia and Turkey have so many things in common. We have over 50,000 shoe makers. We believe that our people can learn from the Turkish experience in making beautiful shoes and dresses.
“So, in our decision to drive five pillars of development especially Small and Medium scale enterprise, we find out that Turkey had a similar trajectory in terms of their machine tools because they were able to produce machines that could service the equipment they were using their factories, and the economy is also built strong on the small and medium scale enterprise as a catalyst for rapid economic development. It would have been too fast for us to go to well established economies like Germany, America and all that.
“But we feel that Turkey had a growing experience taken a bit from Russia and Germany. The outcome in Turkey; solid equipment, solid infrastructure base and then flourishing output in terms of beautiful and wonderful products especially as it concerns garments and leather works.
“Our emphasis in Abia is also on garment and leather works. That naturally took us to Turkey and we believe strongly that there’s a lot for us to learn as a growing economy in Abia from Turkey.”
Mr Hakan Call, the Turkish Ambassador in Nigeria also applauded the Abia state government and expressed optimism in the project’s success.
“We are doing our best to encourage Turkish business investment in Nigeria. Nigeria is a very important country. We are making excellent cooperation.
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