The Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC ) says the agency will partner with the Osun Investment Promotion Agency (OSIPA) to change people’s perception of the Osun as a “Civil Service state.’’
Mr Hassan Lawal, Southwest Zonal Head, NIPC, said that the council will partner with the agency to transform the state into a business and investment hub.
Lawal said this during a Stakeholders’ Engagement Forum organised by OSIPA in collaboration with NIPC on investment in Osogbo on Thursday.
He said the commission was impressed with efforts of Osun government toward sustaining the viability and growth of the state’s economy.
Lawal said that the Osun government had proved its readiness to turning the state to an investment destination.
He commended the state government for the prompt and timely creation of OSIPA, which he said, had really helped in boosting the state’s capacity to foster better investment and business partnerships with local and foreign investors.
“What we are doing here today has been done in many states of the Federation .
” Our attention is focused on Osun as part of efforts to take the state out of its seeming ‘Civil Service Status’ and make it a business and investor driven economy and this is the process to get there.
“Osun is very wealthy, very rich state with mineral resources, arable land and her people are very resourceful.
“Osun has all it takes to be a leading investment state in Nigeria, that is why we have commenced the assessment and our target is to strengthen the capacity of the state in this regard,” Lawal said.
In his remarks, Mr Femi Adeniran, Chief Executive Officer of OSIPA said the state was resolute to turn Osun to an investment and business destination.
Adeniran said the focus of the agency was to strengthen the ‘ease of doing business’ in the state and pursue vigorously things capable of attracting local and foreign investors to invest massively in the state.
“As for us in OSIPA, we are totally focused, committed to encouraging investors and also ensuring the growth of businesses in the state,,’ he said.