Gov. Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has expressed his administration’s readiness to partner with Austria on renewable energy, especially in the area of power generation from the dams in the state.
Makinde gave the indication while receiving a team from the Austrian embassy, led by Guido Stock, the Commercial Councillor to the embassy, which paid him a courtesy visit in his office in Ibadan, on Friday.
He also said that his administration was committed to the development of all the rural areas in the state through provision of electricity and accessible road networks.
“We are very much interested in developing our rural areas because it is one of the areas where we can expand our economy,” he stressed.
The governor said that his administration was ready to partner Austria in actualising its plan to lighten up the rural areas and bring infrastructural development to the state.
Earlier, the commercial counsellor said the visit was to seek partnership with the state government in the area of technology.
Stock, who said he had been in Nigeria since 1990 as a commercial counsellor in the Austria Embassy, observed that Nigeria had changed for better, but said a lot still needed to be done.
He expressed the hope that Austria, with its big technology, would be of help, adding ”we can work together successfully.”
Stock said that his country, a small country with about nine million people, had advanced in technology, with over 300 enterprises.
He said that Austria had over 300 enterprises that specialised in different technologies such as airport fire-fighters, railways machinery, plastic machinery, waste collection and processing items.
The counsellor expressed his country’s readiness to collaborate with the Makinde-led administration in its quest to lighten up the state with its renewable energy projects to make the state better.
