A recent report reveals traders from Aba export a whopping 1 million pairs of shoes every week to West African countries. Aba is the commercial capital of Abia State and a major manufacturing hub in the South East region of Nigeria.
According to an article in Daily Trust, Aba based dealers in leather and garment fabrication also recorded sales in excess of N1 billion in 2016.
The report referred to a press conference hosted by the Special Assistant to the Governor of Abia State, Chinenye Nwogu in Abuja on a fashion show slated for Monday.
Abia State Government Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu has been in the fore front of the made in Aba Campaign and has made shoe production one of his key focus. Back in April, the State Government announced that it had secured a $1.5 billion shoe factory deal with a Chinese shoe industry to contribute to the capacity building of shoe makers in Aba.
Here is what he said at the time
“Abia government is ready to acquire its own automated line of shoe production machine and we have a time frame to achieve it. “So, we believe that the interaction would contribute immensely to capacity building. “Today, the option left for us is to open our space for people to produce in Aba. So, we have translated our ‘Made in Aba’ campaign to ‘Make in Aba’ campaign,”