Businessman, Chinese investors, to build industrial resort in Imo State
Estate to host housing units, trailer park, leather products shops, exhibition areas, 3-star hotel Resort to attract customers, buyers from Aba, Onitsha, Nnewi, Port Harcourt, others
ODUENYI CHRISTOPHER IGWE IS AN international businessman. He lived in China for many years. Now back in Nigeria, he is teaming up with investors in China to establish a world-class multipurpose industrial, commercial, and entertainment estate called Imo-China Leather & Allied Products International Market (ICLAPIM) in Ngo/Okpala area of Imo State, he told Business A.M. in an interview.
The trappings of the planned Imo-China Leather & Allied Products International Market, also described as a ‘commercial town’ include: 2,000 housing units, with 150 standard rooms, full apartments and complete duplexes; food stuffs market; 150-units standard warehouse; 150-capacity trailer park, 3,000 shops for leather and allied products, another 3,000 shops for finished products; an exhibition area where people can do international marketing.
Other facilities are: a school, a general park, a hospital, two units of threestar hotel of 50 rooms each, and eateries.
According to Igwe, who is also the managing director of Imo-China Investment & Trade Centre, the planned commercial town will uplift the economic fortunes of Imo, the Eastern Heartland, with a GDP size of over $18.3 billion, but which has suffered severe downturns due to bad governance since 2011.
He said it would raise the state’s internally generated revenue (IGR) as well as improve the people’s wellbeing through employment, income generation and good life. He said, it is a big project that is looked upon as a new city in Owerri.
“It is also described as a complete city of its own, and due to location of market, it is meant to handle people (customers and buyers) from Port Harcourt, Aba, Onitsha, Nnewi, Enugu and other major cities in the SouthEast and South-South region of Nigeria,” Igwe told Business A.M. during the interview in Owerri, Imo State capital.
Igwe said the ICLAPIM would be located at an area called the “Y Junction” in Ngor/ Okpala local government area of Imo State. He said the project is to be built on a publicprivate partnership (PPP) arrangement.
Some analysts are already seeing the ImoChina Leather and Allied Products Market coming to increase the economic takings of the area, as well as the entire state, with the multiplier effect including jobs and income generation for the youths. They said ICLAPIM would conveniently draw from the Imo International Cargo Airport in Ngor/Okpala area, a network of roads linking the major cities in the South-East and SouthSouth regions, to become a viable business estate.
Other benefits include revenue generation for both the Ngor/Okpala LGA and the Imo government.
The industrial and leisure market’s location at “Y Junction” makes its quite attractive and viable, as it is equidistant to Aba, a commercial hub in Abia State, and Port Harcourt via Igwuruta, which is Nigeria’s oil hub. Meanwhile, the area is also a few minutes from Owerri, Imo capital.
According to Igwe, the incoming leather and allied products market is equally accessible from farther cities like Enugu via AbaUmuahia-Enugu expressway; as well as Nnewi and Onitsha through OwerriOnitsha-Nnewi-Asaba expressway.
“Through these motorways, buyers and customers can comfortably come to the market, do their business and return easily,” he said.
He narrated that another reason for a plan to build housing estate at the ICLAPM is to attract people who may want to relocate to the place, live there and do their business. For example, there is no sense that you will be living in Irete in Owerri West local government area, and you want to have a shop at Ngor/Okpala. Rather, it makes economic sense to come and live there, he added.
The essence of the warehouses, Igwe said, is to complement the Chinese or other people from Turkey or from other countries that want to do business at market, so that they can have warehouses to stock their products and do wholesale business.
He said the market’s industrial park is for the manufacture of leather products like shoes and bags, and allied products.
According to him, “we are looking at having 500 mini, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) for those who are into shoe and bags manufacturing. The manufacturers are expected to rent the shops, he informed.
He believes that ICLAPIM is a complete business cluster. “It is a PPP project, and as such investors are expected to come and take advantage of the enormous business opportunities to be provided in the market to scale up their businesses and create wealth,” he stated.
He called on indigenes of Ngor/Okpala local government area who are in the diaspora to take advantage of the incoming ICLAPIM and invest in their own place. “We are giving it out section by section according to the capacity of the developers to build,” he stated.