How Enugu business park will grow South East economy, by stakeholders

Stakeholders in the business sector have expressed optimism that the multi-million naira Lion Business Park of the Enugu Free Trade Zone would facilitate the growth and development of the economy of the southeast region.

Business Park is a public-private partnership initiative in collaboration with the Enugu State government to facilitate the development of an industrial hub that would address the problems of manufacturing and trading in Nigeria by creating an enabling environment through the provision of state-of-the-art infrastructure.

Speaking during a familiarisation tour by prospective investors, yesterday, the chairman of Business Park, Okechukwu Mbonu, explained that the desire of the promoters was to grow the economy of the region by about 100 per cent.

He told the stakeholders that investors in the free trade zone would enjoy duty-free import of capital equipment, machinery, raw materials and spare parts.

He said individuals, businesses and companies who set up within the park would be exempted from all federal, state and local government taxes, levies and rates, and that no import or export licenses are required in the zone.

“There will be an unrestricted remittance of profits and dividends earned by foreign investors as well as repatriation of foreign capital investment at any time with capital appreciation on the investment,” he said.

Mbonu said the company had signed a 200-megawatt independent power plant contract with Langenburg Technologies for power generation.

An investor, Joshua Okechukwu, while appraising the initiative, which sits on a landmass of over 2000 hectares, said it would boost the southeast economy.

He noted that the utilisation of technology, ICT infrastructure and the Internet to connect people, industries, and businesses and services operating within and outside the park would surely impact the region.

Okechukwu called on Igbo entrepreneurs to key into the project and grow their businesses, saying, “This is the way the Dubai we go to all the time, started.”

An entrepreneur, Chief Dennis Igwe, who agreed that the Park was a move to recapture the entrepreneurial zeal of Ndigbo, praised the initiators.

He said: “We have been asking our people to invest at home, but business and government policies have not been favourable. Now that we have this opportunity, I believe they would not hesitate to invest in the Park, to boost the economy of this region.

“As an entrepreneur based in Abuja, I had looked forward to an opportunity like this. I will do my very best to invest and convince others to do so because this is our own thing.”