Edo Government says it is keen on making the state the preferred investment destination in the country by putting in place a harmonised incentive package to attract investors.
To this end, it said it was collaborating with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ)- Pro Poor Promotion Growth and Employment in Nigeria SEDIN programme.
Mr Kevin Uwaibi, the Managing Director, Edo State Investment Promotion Office, said this at a validation workshop on the Compendium of Investment Incentives in Edo, held in Benin on Friday.
According to Uwaibi, having a harmonised incentive package is apt.
“We do have incentives, but what we are doing today with the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) is to be able to harmonise the incentives and ensure that they are properly documented.
“We have seen that the state is attracting a lot of investors, so we want to categorise the incentives that we have for businesses, so that they can easily be accessed.”
Also speaking, Blessing Ajimoti, the state Coordinator, GIZ- Pro Poor Promotion Growth and Employment in Nigeria SEDIN programme, said that incentives helped to attract private sector investment to a state.
“The need to drive economic growth, competitiveness and job creation in states has made it imperative to attract private sector investments through incentives.
“The increase in the investment drive is premised on its potential to create employment and increase income at both the micro and macro levels.
“To this end, the Edo Government, with support from GIZ’s SEDIN programme, has been mapping, collating, and reviewing all available incentives to harmonise them.
“And also to potentially develop new ones where necessary, harmonise them, and consolidate all the incentives into one document”, she said.
Earlier, Mr Osaze Ogbomo, a facilitator at the workshop, said there was the need for incentives to be backed up by law to make them sustainable.
According to him, incentives are used to attract domestic and foreign investments; which could be cash grants or tax rebirth.
He futher said that the incentives should go through proper consideration process as well as be beneficial to both the state government and investors.
