President Muhammadu Buhari led the Bank of Industry (BoI) to a N2.3 trillion profit before tax, according to Aliyu Dikko, the bank’s board of directors chairman.
On the eve of the BoI’s 63rd annual general meeting in Abuja, Mr. Dikko made this statement.
“It has been excellent. If you look at the eight years when we came on board, the total assets of the bank were about N630 billion. Right now, it has grown to about 2. 3 trillion. So you can see that it has multiplied by more than three times,” the BoI honcho stated. “So the bank has done excellently well in the last eight years.”
According to Mr. Dikko, the risk faced by micro, small, and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs) is that money might be lost easily.
He claims that as a result, it is challenging for financial institutions to promptly grant loans to proprietors of small businesses.
”What we are trying to get the government to do, is to create a corporation that guarantees SMEs,” the BoI chair explained. “Once we have that, the bank will be willing to give to the SMEs because they know that whatever they give to them is guaranteed by any organization. ”
Regarding the bank’s predictions for 2023, the board chairman stated that weak economic growth in Africa was anticipated due to spillover effects from global environmental issues.
According to him, many African countries would likely look for bilateral and multilateral cooperation to manage the negative economic effects as the burden of debt servicing increases.
(NAN)
