Stop branding locally made products with fake foreign names, Gov. Otti to Manufacturers 

By Admin

Governor Alex Otti of Abia state has urged manufacturers and consumers to shun the practice of branding locally made products with fake foreign names.
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Governor Otti who gave the advice while declaring open the Micro Small and Medium Enterprise, MSME Competitiveness and Industrial Productivity Program, MCIPP at the Micheal Okpara Auditorium Umuahia warned that the trend suppresses indigenous innovation and undermines economic growth.

Governor otti reiterated the commitment of the present administration to supporting MSMEs with funding, skills training and structured systems.

The Governor, who noted that the State Government had launched the First Phase of the programme with a total of 1,000 MSMEs, said the State government has planned to scale beneficiaries to 10,000.

He commended the non governmental organizations for initiating the industrial support model before State Government involvement, noting that its success convinced the government to fully adopt and expand the project.
Governor Otti announced the plans by the government to promote Abia’s “Akwaete Cloth” fashion line at the UN General Assembly, but regretted that counterfeit productions from abroad called for concerted efforts to trademark the product.

Earlier, the Commissioner for Industry and SME Development, Mr Mike Akpara, said the initiative aims to scale business formalisation, intellectual property protection and skills certification across Abia.

He added that the programme targets the registration of 4,000 MSMEs with the Corporate Affairs Commission and sectoral regulators, the production of 1,000 National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF) certified artisans as well as the training of 200 NSQF assessors to institutionalise local certification systems.
In her speech, Chief Executive officer of an NGO, Mrs Irunna Ejibe, said MCIPP represents a shift from ad-hoc interventions to a structured industrial ecosystem anchored on certification, standards and enterprise systems.

Mrs Ejibe said the recent programmes implemented in the State have generated a N4.4 billion ecosystem value, created 2,000 jobs, formalised more than 500 MSMEs, and enabled young entrepreneurs to access finance and new markets.

In his remark, the Registrar of Trademarks, Commercial Law Department, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Shafiu Yauri, said that Nigeria operates manual, semi-digital and fully online trademark systems, supported by the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Industrial Property Automation System.

Some beneficiaries including Mrs Ijeoma Offia, Mrs Obiageri Uzoma and Mr Onyekachi Ugwueze a physically challenged all thanked Governor Alex Otti for the programme and appealed to redeem all promises made to standardize their skillsand businesses