Abia State Governor, Dr. Alex Otti, has restatedhis resolve to make the business environment conducive for new investments and bring back old ones that had left the state due to unhealthy government policies.
The Governor who was speaking on Wednesday when he received a group of investors, led by Dr. John Nwankwo, Chief Executive Officer of Comfort Stevens, pointed out that capital investment, is devoid of sentiment and can only be attracted to places where the environment is conducive for it to thrive and flourish.
“You may choose to relocate abroad in search of capital, but foreign capital will not come until you have created the conditions to attract it. No matter how much of preaching you do, no matter how much of platitudes, capital has its own sense, it doesn’t have emotion, it’s not sentimental, it just moves to where the environment has been prepared because the reward for capital is profit,” Governor Otti said, while recalling an article he had written as a newspaper columnist.
He used the forum to assure the investors that his government would support them in realising their dream of completing their factory located in Owerrinta, Isialangwa South Local Government Area of Abia, stressing that he would always align with projects geared towards meeting his agenda of providing job opportunities for the teeming unemployed Abia youth.
Governor Otti stated that his government is working very hard to support existing businesses and also attract new investors through favourable policies, adding that supporting the Geometric Power company to come on stream and the various infrastructural upgrades going on in the State, including the dualisation of the Imo River-Umuikaa-Umuene road in Isialangwa South, are all geared towards industrialisation of Abia.
The Governor expressed joy over the company’s plans is to train and upskill existing local shoe manufacturers in Aba and promised The that his Government would partner the company in that regard.
In his speech, Dr. Nwankwo, who led the team of investors from the United States, China, and Brazil recounted the ugly experience he and his team had gone through under the previous administration in trying to realise their dream of establishing a world class shoe factory in Abia.
He told the Governor that their company, Comfort Stevens, in the last one year of the new government has made tremendous progress that they decided on the visit to formally introduce to the Governor their large scale industrial footwear project, which will be commissioned by December 2024, and thereafter start production.
Nwankwo, who presented different samples of high quality shoes to the Governor, said that the fifteen thousand daily footwear production capacity factory will not only produce complete shoes but also shoe components such as gum, soles, insoles, strings, among others.
He said that the mission of the company with its partners from US, China and Brazil is to produce quality footwears that can compete favourably in the global market, adding that machines for the production of high quality footwears and its components have arrived its facility in Owerrinta for installation before the end of June.
