World Bank supports 11, 000 tomato farmers in Kano

In the last 10 months, the FADAMA II Additional Financing project financed by the World Bank has supported 10845 farmers comprising 585 youths, 1575 females and 8685 males.
The support, according to Kano State Coordination Office of the programme, was facilitated through the signing of memorandum of understanding between Dangote Tomato Company and Fadama Production Cluster Group on profitable marketing of tomato.
In its Project Implementation Report presented to the Dr. Adetunji Oredipe-led World Bank/FGN 6th Mission on Fadama II Additional
Financing (AF), which visited Kano State, the State Project Coordinator, Alhaji Sha’aibu Sulaiman, said the project similarly, in 2016 cropping season, recorded a disbursement of 89, 195 and 110 for rice, sorghum and tomato production groups respectively.
Sorghum and rice farmers were equally well linked to Grand Cereal and popular rice farm off takers and through collaboration with ICRISAT, sorghum farmers were also linked to Honeywell Company, demanding 150,000mt of sorghum from Fadama farmers in Kano.

Rising NPLs: Nigerian banks hold strong buffers – CBN

Moody’s Investor Service, an international rating agency, last weekend made public its ratings of seven Nigerian banks.
The report is similar to the stance of the Central Bank of Nigeria that despite the headwinds being faced by the banking industry, there is enough buffer capacity to withstand the storm.
This is coming after some reports said the Nigerian banking industry is in a full blown crisis. Non-performing loans in the industry has risen to an average of 11 per cent with one of Nigeria’s top tier banks recording NPL level of 23 per cent.
While some banks may be in need of capital, the apex bank had assured that Nigerian banks are strong enough to absorb the losses that may arise from the non-performing loans. Non-performing loans in the industry had risen from 5.3 per cent as at the end of December 2015 to 11.7 percent at the end of June, way above the regulatory ceiling of five percent, according to

Nigeria, D8 nations agree to increase trade by $500bn

The Chambers of Commerce and Industry of eight developing countries, otherwise known as D-8 have agreed to increase trade volume among member countries to the tune of $500 billion by the year 2023.
The countries are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey.
This pact was contained in a communiqué issued at the end of the D-8 Chambers of Commerce and Industry meeting held at Izmir, Turkey in October 2016.
A copy of the communiqué made available to journalists yesterday in Kaduna by the President of Kaduna Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr. Abdul Alimi Bello, who was at the Izmir, Turkey, said they planned to enhance trade amongst the D-8 countries, where the countries have comparative advantage: Bangladesh in silk and mango; Turkey in culture fishing, leather and