Made in Aba Trade Fair to feature over 200 exhibitors

Over 200 exhibitors are expected to participate at the 5th edition of the Made In Aba Trade Fair in Abuja to showcase various made in Nigeria products.

This was disclosed during a joint press conference between the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN) and Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe to herald the commencement of the annual trade fair in Abuja.

Abaribe, who represents Aba South in the senate, said that this year’s trade fair would be a celebration of success in the advancement of Nigerian made goods adding that their years of collaboration has been yielding positive results.

According to him, the essence of the trade fair is to provide good platform for the artisans to deepened their market and improve the quality of the goods produced locally.

He said, “Today, the artisans; fashion designers, shoemakers, and various other manufacturers are not ashamed of stampting made in Aba in their products.

“Now you cant tell the difference between Make in Aba products and the imported products. The quality has improved significantly and for some years now all my clothes, shoes are made in Aba including the suit I am wearing today.”

Abaribe noted that the concept has been well-received by Nigerians and is gaining more acceptance within the West African subregion as well as other parts of the continent.

He recalls that through SMEDAN, the artisans have been able to improve their qualities and have been linked with off-takers from many parts of the country that buy off their goods from the point of production.

“We are part of the revolutionary Nigeria through the promotion of locally made goods.

The senator explained that the reason the trade fair is hold in Abuja was to showcase to the global community the quality of Nigeria’s products.

Abaribe further appealed to the Federal Government and its agencies especially the military and paramilitary agencies to procure their uniforms locally from Aba to improve the economic growth of the country and support government drive for job creation.

“There are about 1.5 million Nigerians in the uniform service in the country and every year here is procurement for uniforms, caps, boots belts etc.

These are things we don’t need to to be imported anymore, they drain our foreign reserves, and render our local manufacturing firm s redundant.

They can be ordered locally. We don’t want a situation where after budget, the contract are given to foreign firms when we can get them here in Aba at a cheaper cost.”

Nigeria has everything within its border to carter for everything, all we have to do is to discover and capitalize on what we have.

Earlier in his remarks, the Director General of SMEDAN, Dr. Dikko Radda expressed satisfaction with the quality and standards of made in Aba products assuring that the agency would continue to support artisans in the country.

Radda who was represented by the Director, Products Development and Promotion, Mr. Wale Fasanya said that SMEDAN has designed a number of Programmes targeting at supporting made in Aba clinic.

He said “there have been a number of engagement with the Aba artisans aimed at enhancing their skills to compete favourably with their counterpart in other climes. He assured that this year’s trade fair will witness massive patronise.”

The DG disclosed that the agency would this year sponsor some artisans from Aba to China for exhibition of Made in Aba products.