FG to Revive Moribund Cotton Textile Firms in Zamfara

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

Federal Government has offered to assist the Zamfara State government revive companies in the state operating in the cotton textile industry.

Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Hajia Aisha Abubakar, made this known when members of the Zamfara Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (ZACCIMA) ran to her for help.

The Minister tasked the body to identify five declining companies in Zamfara State from which two or three would be selected for the Ministry’s intervention.

According to Hajia Abubakar, the five selected firms must be the ones with potentials to create jobs and drive economic activities in Zamfara State.

The Minister said the cotton industry is “very close to my heart” and promised to partner with the agency “to bring back the cotton textile industries we have.”

According to her, “Zamfara State has a history of cotton growing as well as your ginneries and I know that they are all lying fallow and so on.

“These are things we really want to study, with your guidance, for us to understand what the challenges are and how to encourage the farmers to go back to farm and to bring back to the cotton as well as the industries.”

She commended ZACCIMA for seeking the help of FG of the challenges facing the state’s economy. The Minister said the present administration was committed to reviving the agricultural sector.

Hajia Abubakar charged ZACCIMA to join the African Cotton Association, which has a conference coming up in March 2018. She said joining the association would give the agency the needed exposure to grow the state’s economy.

In addition, she told ZACCIMA that, “Zamfara State has never attended our National Council of Industry, Trade and Investment for the last two years. And this is something you should push your Commissioner to do because whatever we are doing in this administration is always a public-private-partnership.”