In a bid to facilitate a smooth transfer of technology from Czech Republic, the Federal Government on Thursday inaugurated the implementation committee for a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it entered into with the country.
The areas of cooperation and technology transfer are in agricultural development and solid minerals.
President Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the committee through the Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari with representatives of some ministries, agencies and departments witnessing the occasion.
The ministries are that of Industry, Trade and Investment; Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.
The Czech Republic was represented by Technology Agency of Czech Republic, while Nigeria was represented by the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI).
Addressing State House correspondents on the partnership, Prof. Mohammed Haruna, the Executive Vice-Chairman/ CEO said: “Mr. President has approved the implementation of the MoU and there are imputes from relevant ministries through participation of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Budget and national Planning, to ensure that Nigeria derives maximum benefit from this relationship.
“NASENI is so chosen to be the secretariat of this implementation because it is within its mandate to proliferate technologies, to facilitate the domestication of the technologies of other nations for the benefit of our own small and medium scale enterprises and to help in the industrial development of the country.
“You will agree with me that there are technologies between Nigeria and other nations, Czech Republic is of the counties in Europe that are advanced in technology development, Nigeria on the other hand has its own benefits; it has the population, the demand, but we lack the technology which means there are benefits for everyone.
“In Nigeria, the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) has been producing, for example, one of areas for immediate translation into practical benefits is agriculture; agricultural equipment, processing, machinery in agriculture. So also is in the area of solid mineral and other industry, these key areas.’’
Also speaking, the Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Mrs Mariam Katagum, expressed the optimism that the agreement would create job opportunities for youths especially in the areas of Information Technology and Artificial Intelligence.
“This is focusing on technology transfer between Nigeria and the Czech Republic; and as you are very much aware, the Czech Republic is one of those countries in Europe that has vast amount of technology and in the yester years, we used to send our students to the former Czechoslovakia as it was called.
“We have 11 thematic areas — agriculture, mining, MSMEs and how we can collaborate to enable get some skilled training that when we have particular tasks that we are doing with certain machinery and there are better machinery that could be developed, we will be able to transfer this knowledge.
“NASENI using their own members of staff and research and development will be able to adapt to these technologies to suit the Nigerian situation.
“There are a lot of young Nigerians who are into IT and they are developing a lot of devices, things that help to make our tasks easier whether home, office, factory.
How do we get these young people to be part of this particular project? And that is why in our discussions we have to bring in agencies of government like the ITF, SMEDAN, BOI.
“We also have to leverage on the organized private sector because there is a lot to learn from the private sector; a lot of resources there that we can tap,’’ Katagum said.
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