By John Oba Abuja
Th e Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, has commended the management of Nestle Nigeria PLC for sourcing 82 percent of its raw materials for production of her varied food products locally. He also urged other international company to emulate Nestle as this creates more employment opportunities in the country and reduces the pressure on foreign exchange for importation of such needed raw materials. Lokpobiri, stated this when offi cials of the company led by its Managing Director and Chief Executive Offi cer, Mauricio Alarcon, visited him, recently.
He said that the businessemployment opportunities in agriculture cannot be fully tapped without other businesses like Nestle sourcing their materials locally. “Th is sourcing has automatically created business-employment for Nigerians across board, especially farmers who grow the needed produces needed by Nestle for their fi nal nutrition food products,” he said. Th e minister was optimistic that very soon their raw materials will be sourced 100 percent locally in Nigeria, thereby increasing the business-employment opportunities for more Nigerians. Re-assuring the offi cials from Nestle, Lokpobiri said the federal government is willing and ready to both partner and support Nestle to
ensure that it meet its needs for raw materials. Earlier, Alarcon said the visit was to seek government collaboration in the production of food products. “We can’t talk of food without talking about agriculture. We are convinced that to build partnership, we need to collaborate and establish eff ective channels of communication, which is the sure way of moving Nigeria forward to a truly selfsuffi cient food secured nation.” Alarco said Nestles is to invest in new land and capacity building as well as in the production of cassava corn fl our. He assured that Nestle will be an example of what a company can do in Nigeria by creating enviable share value addition to the government for other companies to emulate by boosting Nigeria’s economy.
