Calabar: Africa’s Emerging Industrial Hub, By Awassam “Statistics indicate that the Calabar Carnival brings over two million spectators to the streets of Calabar”. Despite the well-known maxim that ‘bad news is good news’, the headlines coming out of Calabar, the Cross River State capital, in the last couple of months, have been anything but bad. In fact, it’s been a harvest of good news. Let’s flip through some of these headlines in no particular order: ‘Jonathan Unveils GE’s $1bn manufacturing facility in Calabar’, ‘Ebony Life TV Opens in Tinapa Calabar’; ‘China to Open Truck Manufacturing Plant in Calabar’, ‘United States’ GE Breaks Ground for $250m Manufacturing and Assembly Plant in Calabar’, ‘Cross River State hosts Africa’s Youngest Billionaire at Africa CEO Roundtable Conference’, and ‘United Nations World Tourism Organisation Conference holds in Calabar’ among others. These positive media vibes could not have come about by happenstance. They show that Calabar has become the new investment hub of Nigeria, nay Africa. The global vice president of General Electric Company, Mr. John Riise, said this much when explaining why Calabar got the nod over other contending Nigerian states and cities in the siting of the Company’s billion-dollar manufacturing and assembly plant at the Calabar Free Trade Zone (CFTZ). As soon as GE’s Chairman, Jeffrey Immelt, announced in 2012 that the American multinational company had signed a country-to-company agreement with the federal government that will see his company investing a billion dollars in Nigeria over the next five years through the building of a multi-model manufacturing and industrial plant to support power generation and oil production (GE’s biggest investment in Sub-Saharan Africa), the next consideration was where it will be located. Riise said GE selected Cross River State ahead of seven other contending cities ‘because of its conducive business environment’. He stressed that the state government was instrumental in the choice as it provided the company with the necessary assurances. “We are committed to playing our part in the sustainable growth of the country and the positive impact this will have on Nigeria and the continent of Africa as a whole,” he said. And the plant, according to Nigeria’s Minister for Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, involves $250 million capital expenditure and over $800 million incremental spending on local sourcing of goods and services. It is expected to create 2,300 jobs and make Nigeria the regional hub for GE’s manufacturing service and renovation in Africa. If this is not good news, then what is? General Electric Company’s position was echoed by a Chinese Trade delegation which recently announced its intention to open a truck manufacturing plant within the Calabar Free Trade Zone. Leader of the group and Deputy Mayor of Chang Chun City, China, Mr. Gui Guangli, had said after a two-day visit in the state exploring possible areas of investments that the delegation had found that there are great opportunities in the state hence its decision to establish of a truck plant in Calabar. The Deputy Mayor maintained that the manufacturing company has eleven outlets across the world including Japan, Germany and United States, adding that from their study, Cross River State is conducive for investment complete with an international airport, seaport and Free Trade Zone. He remarked that the trucks to be produced in Calabar will be of the highest technology and class, and that the volume of production will be determined by the economic indices of demand. And you know your city has become an investment hub when Africa’s Chief Executive Officers, having Africa’s Youngest Billionaire in their midst, Ashish J. Thakkar, chose your city to host their Roundtable Conference. Thakkar, the President of Mara Group was the Keynote Speaker at the Africa CEO Roundtable & Conference on Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility (AR-CSR) which took place from June 20 – 21, 2013 and attended by business leaders, entrepreneurs, top corporate executives and other experts from within and outside the African content. The CEOs converged in Calabar to discuss issues bordering on innovation and sustainability in connection to how transformational leadership promotes innovation and encourages youth empowerment and active participation. They also deliberated on the effects of climate change and the increasingly inadequate natural resources that demand better governance. Other speakers included Emmanouil Revmatas Director, HHP, Samsung West Africa; Mr. Amin Mousalli, Group Managing Director, AIM Group; Mr. Issam Chleuh Founder & Managing Partner, Africa Impact Group; Mr. Segun Ogunsanya, CEO, Airtel Nigeria. The good news doesn’t stop with the Africa CEO conference. The Madrid, Spain-based United Nation’s World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), a United Nations’ agency which deals with questions relating to tourism in addition to compiling the World Tourism Rankings, joined the list of corporations and organisations taking advantage of the ambience of a peaceful Calabar to host its conference in Calabar. The global body held its 53rd UNWTO Commission for Africa Conference at an upscale facility at the Tinapa Business and Leisure Resort with attendance from across the world. As Edem Duke, Nigeria’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, said at the event, hosting that global event in Calabar in particular and Nigeria in general was a kind of ‘coming out party’. His words: “Let’s be frank, Nigeria isn’t one of the first places you think of when you want to go on holiday. So it’s surprising that the United Nations would choose it as the venue for a major conference on tourism in Africa. It’s the first time this event would be held in Nigeria and you could call it a ‘coming out party’ for a country that gets more than its share of negative headlines.” To all of the above, one must include the Calabar Carnival festival which has, since its creation in 2004, more than lived up to its sobriquet as “Africa’s Biggest Street Party”. Thanks to this global brand and the iconic Tinapa integrated Business and Leisure Resort, Cross River State (and its capital city of Calabar) has become the pride of Nigeria and Africa as far as tourism and investment is concerned. Statistics indicate that the Calabar Carnival brings over two million spectators to the streets of Calabar while over 50 million watch it on various local and satellite television stations in Nigeria and across the globe. And the beauty of all this is the insatiable apetite of the state administration to do even more despite the dwindling resources accruing to the state since it lost 76 oil wells to its neighbouring state of Akwa Ibom. I recall Senator Liyel Imoke telling a forum of Cross River State journalists in Abuja sometime in 2012 of his government’s plan to build the Calabar International Conference Centre (CICC) close to the Tinapa Business Resort. Pressed to give an insight, Imoke said the centre would provide conferencing facilities for 5,000 people with a main conference hall capable of sitting 2,000 people, in addition to a business centre, catering facilities, translation boxes capable of translating into six international languages simultaneously (first of its type in sub-Saharan Africa), VIP and Green rooms as well as other public and support facilities required in an international conference centre. Good thinking, and when we throw the Obudu Mountain Resort (with its International Mountain Race, cable car and breathtaking views of stunning mountain scenery) into the mix, it then becomes easy to understand why Liyel Imoke always carries a smile on his face. He is only too aware that the rate at which investors are trooping into Calabar means it is only a matter of time before the lost 76 oil wells become a faint historical dot amidst the vortex of industrial success the state would have become. The motivation to do more is there for sure as Imoke confirms: ‘It is important to note that this growth and development has not taken place in a vacuum. We here in Cross River have managed to attain and maintain a peaceful and socially stable political environment which has enabled our leaders to serve us with total commitment and utmost dedication. This partnership is one for which every Cross Riverian must take great pride in, for it did not come to us by chance. It is the fruitful outcome of the deliberate and often difficult choices we as a people have made for our collective benefit. Indeed, the political stability and social cohesion which is natural to us here in Cross River is a great luxury yet to be attained in various parts of Nigeria and even across the country as a whole. ‘This partnership is one for which every Cross Riverian must take great pride in, for it did not come to us by chance. It is the fruitful outcome of the deliberate and often difficult choices we as a people have made for our collective benefit. Indeed, the political stability and social cohesion which is natural to us here in Cross River is a great luxury yet to be attained in various parts of Nigeria and even across the country as a whole’. Creating an environment conducive for investors to bring in Foreign Direct Investment, as the Cross River State administrators are doing, is certainly a step in the right direction for states to go, especially considering that oil which provides Nigeria with over 70 percent of her GDP, is exhaustible. hehe..tori tori
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 23:57:37 +0000
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