By Dikachi Elemba, in Owerri
With acute unemployment plaguing Imo State due to a lack of sizable businesses that can help absorb most of the unemployed graduates and school leavers, an organization called Imo-China Business Council (ICBC) stated that for proper development and industrial revolution, Imo State needs what he described as “special will” by any government in power in the state to affect and set aside about 2 , 2 billion naira for the project.
The body also said that 10 percent would be intended to encourage equity investments to foreign investors per year to establish three functional industries, one in each of the three areas of the state, namely the areas of Owerri, Orlu and Okigwe. This, the envisaged organization, will be able to create around 25,000 job opportunities for the people of Imo, each year.
This was the result of their brainstorming on how to move Imo forward, said Chris Igwe, chairman of the Imo-China Business Council, adding that if the advice is taken into account and implemented, it “in four years will not only change Imo State’s narratives of becoming the industrial hub of southeastern Nigeria, but must have reduced poverty by creating 100,000 jobs in four years.
ICBC said it has entered into a memorandum of understanding with some Chinese cities that are ready to work with the Imo state government to achieve the envisioned plan within a four-year timeframe.
“This is undoubtedly how China has become a country with the largest number of industries in the world today, overtaking the United States of America and Europe in general, both in in terms of production and export capacity, as well as lifting 700 million people out of poverty, through the creation of industrial jobs with state developments of enabling laws, ”explained the Council.
The Imo-China Business Council noted that with matching / equity investment as well as cheap labor in the first 20 years, China as a country was able to develop a formidable safe haven. for foreign investors, allowing them to feel at home while focusing on needs. infrastructure, such as electricity and roads, transport, health and education, among others.
Also that China has allowed foreigners to take charge of investment developments in sectors like real estate, industrial sectors with enabling laws as a guide (Local Capacity Development Act) to use the influx of industries foreign and technique / technology to develop its industrial manpower capabilities both practical and R&D.
He also noted that today, in 20 years of learning and opening doors and another 20 years of practical technical growth in domestic technologies, China is stronger and is expanding the frontiers of domination and cooperation. economic.
Imo State, ICBC said, has the great advantage of being at the center of the Southeast and South-South in terms of security and trade infrastructure, in addition to its strength in terms of population. and educated youth, and should seize the opportunity that its location creates to establish an “Equity Investment Incentive Fund”, to partner with many Chinese investors who have already expressed interest in investing in it. State since 2003, when the government of Guangdong Province approved the whopping $ 3.2 billion, but Imo lost it to Ogun State due to the internal crisis. quarrels of the Ngor Okpala people over land issues.
Informing that today the so-called Imo Free Trade Zone is now the Ogun EPZ People’s State of Olokola with a large number of factories including those owned by Imo citizens.
He added that the Imo state government should change its rhetoric in favor of developing industries that in turn will employ young people, as well as cutting spending on safety votes, he added. .