FTZs’ll reduce high unemployment, insecurity

The Managing Director, Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA), Prof. Adesoji Adesugba has said the federal government will use the Free Trade Zone Scheme to reduce high unemployment in the country.

Adesugba, who made the remark when Alhaji Usman Bello Kankara, the District Head of Kerate, Kankara, Katsina State paid him a courtesy visit on Monday in Abuja added that such industrial hubs would gradually quash the widespread insecurity across the country.

The Head, Corporate Communications, NEPZA, Martins Odeh in a press release issued in Abuja assured that President Muhammed Buhar led administration is quietly but diligently repositioning the country’s free trade zones to contribute to both our National Domestic Product and Gross Domestic Product respectively.

In his words: “The president is doing this with the revamping of decayed infrastructure in the two public zones in Kano and Calabar and by allowing for the establishment of news ones across the nation.

“We are set to visit Katsina State in a fortnight to flag-off the Funtua Free Trade Zone dedicated for the production of cottons and fabrics for local consumption and exportation.

“This zone, when operational, will leverage on the cotton belt of the North West to commence active production of varieties of fabrics in commercial quantities’’, the NEPZA boss said.

Adesugba explained that no part of the country would be exempted from harbouring a type of zone, adding that many state governors were beginning to key into the zone business ecosystem to boost commerce, employment and revenues.

The NEPZA CEO, therefore, said the zone scheme was a wonderful business concept aimed at speeding up industrialization, adding that industries operating in both the private and public zones were providing an unimaginable number of dependable employments to job seekers.

“The Authority believes sincerely that the zone can be used to improve the economic situation we are in now. In fact, if the majority of our young people are gainfully engaged, the current security situation will improve dramatically.

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