Bank of Industry has opened a regional office in Ibadan in order to support South West Economy.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the bank, Mr. Rasheed Olaoluwa while addressing the crowd during the ceremony said “Apart from supporting the power and aviation industries in Nigeria, we view manufacturing as a key area of investment and that is why we have also supported agro-processing of farm produce. We have strong partnership with the agriculture ministry at the federal level, where we manage intervention funds on its behalf.
“For the Small and Medium Enterprises, we started by implementing deliberate strategy to increase our impact in that area in 2014. We now have a directorate that focuses only on the SMEs. We appointed 122 business development service providers last year meant to work with the SMEs in repackaging their business. We realise that the SMEs problem is not only finance but also technical ability to write good proposal.
“We have been promoting industrialisation in Oyo State and as of March 31, this year, we had provided loans in excess of N10bn to over 80 companies and micro enterprises spread across the state. We have also offered over N18bn loans to companies in the South-West excluding Lagos.
“We signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the state in 2012, which culminated in the establishment of the Oyo State Government/Bank of Industry Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Matching Fund Scheme with N1bn committed to it.”