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By Godwin Chukwumaechi, Port Harcourt
The Rivers State Government has announced a two-day Economic and Investments Summit as part of activities to mark the one year anniversary of the administration of Governor Siminalayi Fubara.
First of its kind in the last 8 years, the summit will hold on May 22 to 23, 2024 and has as its theme; ‘Education & Technology: Empowering Leaders of Tomorrow; Educating Rivers State youth for the Digital Economy.’
It will focus on 7 thematic areas and geared towards the overall goal of opening the state economy to local and foreign investments.
The seven thematic areas include: Inclusive Education and Technology; Manufacturing and Industrialization and Ease of doing business. Others are Infrastructural Development and Renewable Energy; Blue Economy; Creative Economy and Today’s investment opportunities in creative status and Economic Growth and Development.
According to the chairman of the Publicity committee of the summit and and Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Warisenbo Joseph Johnson, several experts would be dissecting the various thematic areas and respond to various questions that would arise from the two-day event.
The commissioner said, “The summit will have both long and short term gains on investors who will be coming to do business in the state. Summits are gathering of experts who will come and give an inroad or direction as to some of the issues on our thematic areas, that is areas that are troubling us.
“We are bringing experts who will come and breathe life into them. I think it is a positive development. The topics we will be dealing with will give a picture of where Rivers State is headed after we are done”.
Explaining further the expected gains of the summit, Ibim Semenitari, a former Commissioner for Information and Communications and member of the Publicity committee of the summit stated; “Every time you talk about investment and economic summit, you are actually announcing that you are open for business. And that really is the point of this summit.”
She stressed; “People are coming into Rivers State to have a conversation that says Rivers State is open for business. So, when you talk about the short term gain, the visibility that comes from having an investment summit that already by itself is a gain because your comfort level can go up. The competition is going to be hard and people are going to be asking questions.
“Part of what an investment and economic summit does is that it shows the mindset of government. It is a private sector and public sector handshake. It positions the mindset of the government. You find that a lot of the drivers of the economy.
“One of the outcomes of this summit is that major investment decisions are going to be made. There will be signups in certain investments in the state. You are going to be finding assets of the state that were hitherto lying dormant being resuscitated”.
