Experts harp on entrepreneurship to grow economy

President of the Agricultural and Industrial Entrepreneurs of Nigeria (AIEN), Chukwu Nwachukwu has emphasised the need to promote entrepreneurship to drive economic growth and development, also noting that over two million jobs would be created from the firm’s cluster initiative.

Speaking at an event on ward-based cluster initiative in Nigeria, Nwachukwu said, “Our clusters initiative means that each local government would have one cluster and were 250 to 500 entrepreneurs per local government are producing, we can create over 2 million jobs annually,” stressing that entrepreneurs must drive employment generation and wealth creation. He explained that the problem with SME’s is inadequate access to finance and vital platforms.

According to him, AIEN would partner with the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) and financial institutions to create and empower entrepreneurs.

“We would be working with institutions like the CBN, Bank of Agriculture, Bank of Industry and Development Bank of Nigeria. We wish to create the funding enablement from the development finance institution, table them on the shoulders of entrepreneurs and attract funding to the deposit money banks and those to be delivered at micro-credit, to the entrepreneurs who will in turn, employ people and who will also produce raw materials for consumption, export, and we will increase the non-oil export,” he said.