By Yemisi Izuora
The Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BoI), Rasheed Olaoluwa, said the bank is supporting growth of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria through partnership it believed would endure.
The said it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with eighteen state governments to facilitate the bank’s support to MSMEs in those states.
Olaoluwa said that BoI and the affected state governments had agreed on certain criteria for the support, adding,“At the last count we have 18 states government that we have signed MoUs with us,” he said on Thursday. “The purpose of the MoU is to ensure that we are able to support MSMEs within the states with which we have signed MoUs.
“Before we grant a loan, the state government must recommend because we usually deal with the Ministry of Commerce in the states.
“So they will be the ones to recommend the applicants to us.”
Olaoluwa said the bank had disbursed some small scale facilities on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
under the cassava bread initiative of the government.
He said that BoI had launched its own sector specific fund called the “Cottage Agro Processing Fund” to support agro industry in the country.
He said that N5 billion fund had provided for interested businesses, adding that many applications had been received with respect to accessing the fund.
“Beyond that, we also have some small scale facilities that we disburse on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
“For the first time in the history of the Bank of Industry we launched our own sector specific fund, which is the Cottage Agro Processing Fund which we launched in the last quarter of 2014.
“It is a N5 billion fund and it is stated clearly what sector we are looking at and its modus operandi,” he said.