Business
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Jude Akubuilo, Enugu State commissioner for commerce and industry, has urged South Easterners to start to think of citing their business at home before elsewhere
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Jul. 15, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT
PREPARATIONS for the 2013 South East Economic Summit have entered the speed gear with the inauguration of its planning committee in Enugu. The Summit is scheduled to hold from October 29 to 31 at the Nike Lake Resort Hotel, Enugu, with the theme: Opening up South East Nigeria for Increased Trade & Investment. Jude Akubuilo, commissioner for commerce and industry in Enugu State, said during the inauguration that the peculiar history of the South East and current events across the nation, required that the people of the zone should start to think homeward when considering the siting of their businesses.
He observed that Nigerians from other zones hardly set up businesses outside their geopolitical zones but the people of the South East site theirs in practically every corner of the country and in the process, they help to develop those areas to the detriment of their own zone.
“People of the zone are often the targets of exploitative taxes and other obnoxious policies of the government of the states where they do business and, indeed, are the usual victims of the serial crises that have come to defile the Nigerian nation. Governments of the five South East states have to team up in a new spirit of brotherhood to provide a conducive environment for business in the zone,” he said and called on South Easterners in business outside the zone to adopt the think home philosophy.
Chris Obiefuna, chairman of the planning committee, said the theme of the summit was very apt and relevant to the current needs and aspirations of the South East. He said that the summit itself “is an appropriate platform for fashioning out the medium and long-term economic development agenda of the zone.” He described this year’s summit as a natural follow up to the last two summits and assured that it would leverage on the positive results they have achieved in raising the overall development profile of the zone.
He also noted that the summit would help the zone to prepare its medium and long term economic development agenda for integration into the proposed South East – South-South development plan which, when implemented, would position the economy of the two zones to lead economic activities in the West and Central African sub-regions within the next ten years.
Obiefuna thanked the governors of the five South East states for their support and encouragement which, he said, accounted for the phenomenal success of the first two summits. He assured them that this year’s summit would, in the same tradition, continue to yield practical dividends that will propel economic activities in the zone far above their investments in the project.
“This year’s summit will engage identifiable leaders and stakeholders in every sector on a one–on–one basis to ascertain their problems and how to nurture them so as to harness their potentials to the fullest. The summit will also ascertain the reasons why businesses in the South East business hubs like Onitsha, Aba and Nnewi are relocating to Lagos with a view to finding solutions that will arrest the situation and restore the South East to its past glories in business and economy,” he said.
Obiefuna further expressed optimism on the success of the 2013 summit since majority of the members of the planning committee were part of the team that delivered the last two successful summits. He, however, appealed to them not to be carried away by their past achievements but to gird their loins for a more serious challenge ahead by adopting self denial, sacrifice and hard work in order to take the summit to the next level of success.
Presenting an executive brief on the theme of the summit, Ifediora Amobi, executive director of Afri-Heritage Institution, said that the theme of this year’s summit was specially chosen to promote some of the recent key infrastructural developments in the zone that are bound to create the right environment for injection of fresh capitals into the South East and, as well, boost trade and investment. These, he said, included the recent commissioning of the remodeled domestic terminal of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu, and the laying of the foundation stone of the international terminal, the approval for the establishment of a free trade zone that would extend from 9th Mile Corner to Akanu Ibiam International Airport and the designation of Sam Mbakwe Airport in Owerri as an International Cargo Airport.
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