Delta, BOI partner on zero interest loans for SMES

The DELTA State Government in collaboration with the Bank of Industry is set to offer zero-interest loans to market women and Small and Medium Entrepreneurs, (SMEs) in the state.

Commissioner for Trade and Investments, Chika Ossai, stated this while speaking with journalists on the prospect of the ministry in the 2020 budget year.

“The welfare of the market women and SMEs are of paramount importance to the state governor. And the process of repayment is delaying the plan, as most people who took such loans in the past saw it as a share of their national cake,” he said.

On the achievement made so far by his ministry and prospects for the year 2020, he said, “Seventy per cent of this year’s budget will go to on-going projects as Okowa’s administration is committed to ensuring that all projects are completed before awarding new ones.”

He further stated that the ministry has many completed and ongoing market projects across the state adding that all uncompleted market projects would be delivered before mid-year.

Ossai further stressed that the Kwale Industrial Park (KIP) was receiving the needed attention, saying, “The state is making effort to woo more investors to the industrial park and the investment trips to China and the United States of America (USA) are already yielding expected results.”

He also disclosed that state government has approved the conception of the Ika Fish Feed Mill with American foreign investors adding, “The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the state government and the investors will be signed soon.

“The ongoing recertification of cooperative society exercise has witnessed low turn out of cooperative societies to the exercise, but we are hopeful that most of the societies with faceless people would have been weeded out.”