Good times are here for cotton farmers in Nigeria.
The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced the approval of a fresh loan of N19.18bn to nine cotton producing firms.
This is in a bid to retooling their processing plants.
The bank has also set aside the sum of N500m for the recycling of old naira notes being mopped up from circulation via the Deposit Money Banks across the country.
According to the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele the N19.18bn would be disbursed with a single-digit interest rate.
The funds, according to him, will help to sustain their operations and improve their production capacity.
He said the same support would be extended to the textile and garment firms.
He said this on Tuesday at the signing of two memoranda of understanding between the National Cotton Association of Nigeria and Ginning Companies to guarantee a steady take-off and processing of cotton lint and seeds.
Present at the MoU signing ceremony are the governors of Kaduna Nasir El-Rufai; Cross River, Prof Ben Ayade; Gombe,
Alhaji Muhammad Yahaya, and Deputy Governor of Katsina State, Alhaji Mannir Yakubu.
The event was also attended by the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola; and all the service chiefs and heads of para-military agencies.
Emefiele described the MoU as a giant leap towards the implementation of Executive Order 003, in which President Muhammadu Buhari directed all the FG’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies to give preference to local content in their procurement of goods and services.
The CBN governor said, “We are improving the linkage between cotton farmers and ginneries, by ensuring that ginneries are able to off-take the high-quality cotton produced by these farmers.
“In this regard, an approval to a tune of N19.18bn has been granted to finance nine ginneries with a view to retooling their processing plants, while providing them with improved access to finance at single digit interest rate.”
Emefiele also said, “If we want to take the intervention from cotton farmers to the ginneries at least those two farmers alone, we’ve spent close to N50bn.”
According to him, the amount would eventually run into over N100bn.
