The Bank of Industry (BOI) has secured a 60 million Euro credit facility from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to fund Nigeria’s cocoa and dairy value addition industries. 

Disclosed by the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the BOI, Dr Olasupo Olusi, at the Cocoa Value Addition Summit held in Abuja, the funding will target local agricultural processing, food ingredient production, and chocolate manufacturing.

Convened by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, the summit focused on transitioning African economies away from raw bean exports toward local processing and brand development. 

The event hosted leaders and agricultural stakeholders from Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon, who signed the Abuja Declaration to establish the Cocoa Value Addition Alliance (CVAA).

The 60 million Euro credit line represents a dedicated portion of a larger 85 million Euro joint EIB-BoI facility. Backed by the European Union under its Global Gateway initiative, the fund is structured to improve industrial capacity within Nigeria’s agricultural processing sectors. 

The capital window is to address historical bottlenecks in manufacturing by providing accessible credit lines for processing machinery, storage infrastructure, and factory setups. This industrial push aligns with direct federal policies to halt raw crop capitalisation. 

Representing President Bola Tinubu at the summit, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, stated that producing countries must prioritise value addition to capture a larger share of the global chocolate industry’s wealth. 

The BoI intends to deploy the facility to help local processors scale up operations, ensuring raw cocoa and dairy inputs are manufactured into consumer goods domestically before export.

Source: Vanguard News
Image Credit: Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security