The Bank of Industry (BoI) is planning a fundraiser of N1trillion from within and outside the country to finance industrial component of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

Giving this hint at the weekend was the Acting Managing Director, Bank of Industry, Waheed Olagunju. He spoke in Abuja during the bank’s 57th Annual General Meeting.

The bank also released strategies aimed at revving up its risk assets to N1.2 trillion by 2019 in line with its revalidated strategic plan (2016-2019).

Justifying the need for the fundraiser, Olagunju said: “The bank was engaging in an aggressive fund mobilisation drive in order to support federal government’s ERGP as well as support ventures that would fast track Nigeria’s realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Under the plan, it is envisaged that enterprises financed by BoI would generate more than five million jobs.”

The bank had commenced discussion with the Development Bank of Nigeria and some foreign national as well as multilateral development finance

“Efforts by both the federal government and the Central Bank of Nigeria is to make the bank more viable despite competing needs and financial constraints, the recapitalisation drive by the bank became necessary in achieving its developmental agenda and in ensuring that MSMEs account for at least 30 per cent of the Bank’s projected risk assets of N1.2 trillion by 2019.”

Olagunju said given a breakdown of the bank’s activities in the year under review, the bank at 30th April, 2017, had already exceeded last year’s disbursement to MSME’s by disbursing more than N13 billion as against last year’s N8billion which represents 62% increase.

The volume of new loans rose by 10% to N171bn from N156bn in 2015, while disbursements to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) similarly went up by 42% within the same period to N8bn from N5.64bn.
Source: The Nation