Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will officially declare open the 12th Abuja International Trade Fair billed to hold from September 21-October 7.
The Director General, Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), Chijioke Ekechukwu, disclosed yesterday that the vice-president will attend the fair and be accompanied by the FCT Minister, Mohammed Musa Bello, and other ministers on September 26.
The trade fair to hold at J.T Useni International Trade Fair Complex, will showcase a lot of Made-in-Nigeria products and in addition significantly boost the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) directly under the purview of the Office of the Vice-President.
Ekechukwu stressed that the trade fair will be different from the past editions as many MDAs, manufacturers, business men of various levels and investors, are coming to play role in the organisation of the event.
The fair will feature 30 countries, which have indicated interest to participate through the commercial attaches of the foreign embassies in Nigeria, aside many northern state governments that want to use the platform to showcase agricultural and mineral products peculiar to their environments.
“There will be many innovations that are changing the metrics of what we used to do. Before, the Abuja international trade fair was predominantly for people coming to buy and sell, but now we are trying to reach out to people who are interested in expanding their market space through creating a chain of retailers, wholesalers as the case may be. And a good number of such distribution chain will like to see which company they can represent in the Nigerian market. There are many innovators, especially one or two universities coming with the inventions they have made, while a group in Aba will bring all the Made-in-Aba products to the exhibition stands,” Ekechukwu said.
In addition, the DG of ACCI, described Nigeria’s exit from recession as a welcome development as the various indicators showed an economy in recovery.
“First of all, the purchasing managers’ index that we have today is above 50, which shows that the manufacturing sector and the real sector are both growing well. And today we are growing 55 to 56 per cent as the case may be. And so, with this happening, you just note that the economy is driving itself, especially through the real sector and SMEs, and this is one of the major indicators that the economy is doing well. You also see that the inflation rate is beginning to drop and by small margin all time. Our GDP is also gradually going back to over $500 billion,” Ekechukwu said.
