SMEDAN partners pan African competitiveness forum to promote cluster industries

THE Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) ispartnering with the Pan African Competitiveness Forum (PACF) to promote the development ofa cluster of industries in the country.The Managing Director of SMEDAN, Alhaji Mohammed Umar, made the announcement in Abuja on Tuesday when the Chairman of the Steering Committee of PACF, Prof. Azikiwe Onwualu, visited him.A statement byMr. Levi Anyikwa, the agency's assistant director, Corporate Affairs,said thatthe objective of PACF wasto promote the establishment of at least one Micro, Small and Medium Scale Enterprise (MSME) cluster in each of the 774 local government areas in the country.Itquoted Umar as saying that the objective of PACF was similar to SMEDAN's one local government, one product (OLOP) initiative.'With SMEDAN's clusters in all 774 local governments and 23 Industrial Development Centres (IDCs) in the six geo-political zones of the country, the coming on board ofPACFwould help us tremendously to improve the standard of products made in Nigeria.''Umar said that theinnovative technologies employed in improving the standard of such products must also be indigenous and not imported, explaining thatPACF would collaborate with SMEDAN to organise the annual PACF conference in Nigeria.He said that theaim was to sensitise stakeholders on the need to develop means of infusinginnovation and competitiveness in MSME clusters to enhance their capacities for producing competitive products and services.Umaradded thatthe synergy between related government agencies had become necessary to enable them record higher success rates in their respective mandates.Headded that irrespective of the number of policies formulated or money spent bygovernment, the agencies would continue to record low impact if stakeholders didnot work together.
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