In an effort to boost the growth of medium and small scale enterprises, the Federal Government of Nigeria has received $32 million from the World Bank for the facilitation of fish farming.
This was disclosed by Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), Mustapha Bello, at the flag- off of implementation of the Catfish Industry Value Chain
Development held at the commission's headquarters in Abuja recently.
According to him, the World Bank selected catfish farming as an industry that can offer strong potential for growth and provision of employment. In addition to the $32 million given by the World Bank, the Federal Government gave N30 million ($236,000) to help in financing the project.
Bello said five firms expressed an interest in handling the project in collaboration with the World Bank. AquacultureProduction Technology (APT) of Israel was selected, and is to working with two Nigerian companies, Quick Projects Ltd and Eagleflair Consulting Ltd.
APT Director, Dan Cohen, expressed his company's desire to make Nigeria a force to reckon with in catfish farming through capacity building and establishment of demonstration farms. He said Nigeria was chosen for the project because it has a good climate and is a huge consumer of fish, importing a million tonnes per annum.
He said APT has 12 areas of intervention, in addition to three pilot states- Abia, Kaduna and Lagos, set up to meet the 24 months performance deadline stated in the terms of reference given to them by NIPC.
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