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By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.
The Director general,DG, Kogi Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, KOCCIMA, Mr.Samuel Enejoh, has identified poverty of knowledge about the importance of trade trade by residents of the state, as one of the factors responsible for the poor attendance by companies at the 2023 kogi trade fair in Lokoja.
The DG, who gave the reason in an interview with the correspondent of The Reporters at the Muhammadu Buhari Civic Centre, Lokoja, the venue of the trade fair on Wednesday,
said the harsh economic reality of the state in Nigeria in general did not help the matter as well.
“What is really contributing to the poor attendance of the exhibitors has to do with the economy of kogi state and Nigeria at large and poverty of knowledge by kogites about the importance of trade fair to the economic development of the state.
“A lot of people in the state are not aware of the importance of attending trade fair and its advantages.
“The purchasing power is not there as expected.
” In kogi state, for almost about 20 years, we have not held trade, this year trade fair is an improvement over the year last.
“People in the state are not really use to the idea of trade fair because of the long period that we’,ve not heard it in the state.
“We excepted the state state government’s patronage in terms of taking stands by the concerned ministry and local governments , but may be because of the last election, attention of the people went into the election and they are trying to stabilize,” he said.
According to him, the chamber wrote to many companies for them to participate in the trade f air but got 12 of them as well as about 50 MSMEs participating as at November 29.
The DG,however,expressed optimism that next year fair would be better than this year, adding that KOCCIMA would back to the drawing board to rectify the lapses.
He said that the trade fair was scheduled to last for two weeks, but has to be reduced to ten days because of the poor attendance by the exhibitors.
Mr. Eneojoh, who described trade fair as very important to the economy of kogi state, said it is a market, adding that KOCCIMA only opened the market for the people of the state to engage in buying products, sell them and make profits.
He called on the state government to double effort in encouraging producers to produce enough products for sale as well as for the buyers to be able to buy the products.
Managers of few companies that turned at the fair,in separate interview with The Reporters complained of low patronage as well.
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