NIRSAL trains Borno bankers on agribusiness lending

The Nigerian Incentivesbased Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), an affiliate of the CBN, has commenced a 4-day training of 50 staff of microfinance banks, deposit money banks and stakeholders in Borno Huawei Nigeria says its investment in the country has hit $76 million and that it made procurements in the local market worth $986m in five years.

The ICT company’s Senior Energy Solutions expert, Mr Samuel Orji, disclosed this at the maiden Oil & Gas Summit Abuja.

Mr Orji, who also said the company made $92 billion revenue in 2017, added that Huawei was targeting $100bn at the end of 2018.

Addressing energy experts across the public and private sectors, he said Huawei was serving 197 of the Fortune Global 500 State on funding.

The specific aim, according to Mohammed Habib Babamallam, Head of Project Monitoring, Reporting and Remediation Office of the agency, at the opening of the training in Maiduguri, yesterday, was to identify fundable agricultural agribusiness companies and 14 of the world’s top 20 oil and gas enterprises, as their digital transformation strategic partner.

In his welcome speech, the Managing Director of Huawei Nigeria Enterprise Business, Mr Tank Li, said the oil and gas sector was faced with a lot of challenges, so the need to have a more secure, efficient, and cost-effective production way to reduce operational costs cannot be overemphasized.

“And so Huawei believes that ICT and digital technologies are the answer,’’ he said.

Mr Li reemphasized that Huawei’s vision was to build a strong and business plans/credit requests that would facilitate rapid increase to the agricultural sector.

He said the trainees, who are staff of lending institutions, would be better equipped with the required skills in financing agribusinesses through the various agric intervention funds. win-win cooperation ecosystem to support the digital transformation of the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

Mr. Henry Ikem Obih, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s Group Executive Director Downstream, in his speech said NNPC is committed to the digitization and digital transformation of its business.

Mr. Ahmed Bobboi, the Petroleum Equalization Fund Executive Secretary, said PEF was trying to synchronize the petroleum products data with all the other stake holders in Nigeria’s oil & gas sector through digital transformation.