Agro-Industrial Park will help to diversify economy — Aniagwu

Delta Government on Thursday said it was developing a one-stop-shop Agro-Industrial Park to diversify the state’s economy beyond oil.

Commissioner for Information in the state, Mr Charles Aniagwu, disclosed this while addressing journalists after an inspection visit to the Agro-Industrial Park at Aboh-Ogwashi in Aniocha South Local Government Area of the state.

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He stated that the project was one of the efforts of government geared towards diversification of the state’s economy.

“You will recall that during our electioneering campaign in our first tenure, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa came out with an acronym SMART Agenda in which includes Agricultural reforms and accelerated industrialisation.

“Government after governments had continued to preach diversification without doing much in that direction.

“The development of the Agro-Industrial Park is a step towards diversification of the state’s economy beyond oil revenues.

“Because we have a comparative advantage in agriculture in Delta the governor deemed it fit to set up this Agro-Industrial Park and with the high-powered Committee you will realise that it is not a tea party.

“It will benefit all Deltans irrespective of their location because everybody involved in agricultural production can bring their products for processing.

“This project is a very good step in diversifying the economy through the Agricultural sector,” Aniagwu stated.

Chairman of the Implementation Committee, Professor Eric Eboh, said the project inspection was designed to assess the state of work in relation to overall work plan of the project.

He said the project went through rigorous feasibility, appraisal and analysis both national and international process with over three foreign banks competing to fund the project.

He noted that the project which started in October has 18 months completion timeline and the Ogwashi-Uku dam was one of the key criteria for the location of the Agro-Industrial Park.

Project Consultant, Arch Kester Ifeadi, in a technical brief, said the idea for the project started three years ago.

He said the land comprises of 220 hectares with 100 hectares of rice farm as the anchor project and assured that there would be constant electricity and water supply in the park.