Afreximbank offers $1b to complete Steel firm
African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has agreed to release S1 billion for the revival of Ajaokuta Steel Company.
The project is also backed by Russian Export Centre, to adequately fund the project, the minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, said.
Russian engineering and construction group, Metprom, would undertake the necessary work to bring the steel complex into operation.
Nigeria and Russia will sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) as part of the resuscitation programme of the Ajaokuta Steel Company, which has been moribund for over four decades.
Adegbite said that the ongoing arrangement would spark off a major industrial revolution in Nigeria in the next two years.
The construction of Ajaokuta Steel began in 1979 with assistance from the then Soviet Union, but it never started production and several attempts to revive it by transferring it to private investors failed forcing the government to terminate the concessions.
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