By Fola James
The Managing Director, Lagos Deep Offshore Logistic Base LADOL, Dr. Amy Jadesimi has described the logistic company as a model for new economic diversification.
“We spent the last three years perfecting this master plan and we are now rolling it out.”Dr Jadesimi said at the 19th edition of the International Economic Forum on Africa themed: “African Integration: Investing in our common future,” held at the weekend, in Madrid, Spain.
The Forum was organised by the OECD Development Centre and the African Union Commission, in collaboration with Casa Árabe, Casa África and the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation.
The event focused on the findings of the Africa’s Development Dynamics 2019: Achieving Productive Transformation report, which is the first economic report produced by the African Union Commission, in collaboration with the Development Centre.
Meanwhile, Dr. Jadesimi who was joined on the panel by, Arkebe Oqubay, Senior Minister and Special Adviser to the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Ethiopia), Jong-Dae Park, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea in the Republic of South Africa, Felix Fernández-Shaw, Director Development and International Co-operation, EU and the moderator was María Teresa Fernández De La Vega, Chair, Women’s foundation for Africa, said LADOL has expanded the Nigerian maritime business sector.
The LADOL boss stated that the company has leverage on revenues from servicing the petroleum sector to complete the development of the remainder of the Zone as a completely sustainable ecosystem and circular economy.
She explained that this development highlights the importance of supporting real private sector indigenous companies – “because only indigenous companies will have the stamina, staying power and passion to build new businesses over ten to twenty years.
80 per cent of the 680 million new jobs the world needs will be created by SME’s and larger indigenous companies such as LADOL.”
According to her “it is imperative that development finance institutions (DFIs) and other investors in Africa directly fund private companies in Africa.
To date, the vast majority of funds have gone through intermediaries, with most of the direct funding going to multinationals operating in Africa, this has to change if we want to build a sustainable world and maximise returns to investors.”
She stated further that “LADOL is the largest 100 per cent private, 100 per cent indigenous industrial special economic zone in Nigeria.”
Over the last 18 years LADOL has attracted USD 500 million into the Zone, transforming a disused swamp into a world class integrated logistics base and the largest fabrication and integration Yard in West Africa, with the highest lifting capacity in Africa.
The company focuses on tackling high value activities, taking on projects that have never been done in Nigeria before, thereby opening up the market with a multiplier effect on job creation in the sector.
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