Akwa Ibom Commissioner Woos Investors, Says State Conducive to Business

The Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Comrade Ini Ememobong, has reiterated that Akwa Ibom State is now more receptive to investors than ever before.

The Commissioner stated this Wednesday in Uyo, while addressing the executive members of a group, League of Akwa Ibom Professionals, when they paid him a courtesy visit in his office.

While listing the numerous achievements of the Udom Emmanuel administration in the areas of industrialization, aviation development and agriculture, Comr. Ememobong maintained that more investors were still thronging to the state because of the conducive atmosphere created by Governor Udom Emmanuel and other strategic infrastructures put in place by his administration to support investments opportunities.

” In Akwa Ibom State right now, we have different layers of investment machinery put in place to facilitate the ease of doing business ” .

” For example, We have the Foreign Direct Investment Committee, the Akwa Ibom Investment Corporation, and the Ministry of Trade and Investment , all of them are working together to attract investments to the state. We have also established a One-Stop investment shop, where in under one roof, you can find critical persons related to all the information you may require to setup a business here in the state ” .

The Commissioner also stated that the state government was still open for business negotiations with interested investors wishing to invest, adding that their investments will be safer in the state.

Responding, the National President of the League of Akwa Ibom Professionals, Dr. Enobong Umoessien stated that the group was established in 2003 as a non-political structure with interest in skill transfer, economic development, and investment promotion.

Dr. Umoessien remarked that ” We were established in 2003 with the focus to attract investments to our various communities, and shortly after the inauguration of the current executive officers, we came up with three core agenda to mainly promote Institutional Development, Programme/Project Development and Communications ” .

” By Institutional Development, we want to bring up the League to meet up with its international counterparts in order for us to be able to attract foreign attention and other advantages to the state ” .

” In the area of Projects, we discover that we can broker investment to the state through international funds that are made available for such purposes, so we want to see how we can leverage on our individual capacities in partnership with the state government to attract different projects to the state ” .

” On Communications, we want to be able to contribute as a body to the policy direction of the state as well as made our opinion known on issues of development in the state ” .

The International President explained further that, ”With the coming of Ibom Deep Seaport, we are also looking forward to leveraging on our relationship with the Indians and the Chinese to train our people on maritime business opportunities in order to prepare our people for opportunities in that sector ” .

” We have also heard a lot about the developmental strides of Governor Emmanuel, and we are here to canvass for more of such development, and to also contribute our quota to the development of the state ” . Dr. Umoessien stressed .

Other executive members on the delegation include : the State Chairman, League of Akwa Ibom Professionals, Akwa Ibom Branch, Mr. Mboutidem Affia, the state Secretary, Mr. Inibehe Okpoho and the Financial Secretary, Mr. Nsikanabasi Udoh.