THE  National Agency for Food, Drug AdministraTion and Control (NAFDAC) in Southeast has reduced by 50 per cent the cost of registering products.

Its Assistant Director, Food Safety and Applied Nutrition,  Mr Venatus lhekire, in a statement,  explained that it was contained in a lecture titled: MSME registration and Ease of Doing Businessdelivered in Enugu  at the weekendelivered the lecture at the meeting of heads of Federal Government  parastatals in the state.

He recalled the registration of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) products started in March 2018 till June 2019, adding that 601 MSMEs have been registered.

The director said the registration covered products from the five states of the Southeast, which include Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.

He said the agency started MSMEs products’ registration in the zones since last year in furtherance of the Presidential Executive Order on Ease of Doing Business (EODB), which NAFDAC is a key agency that drives the order.

He said: “Under the period under review, which is between March 2018 and June 2019, we registered 601 MSMEs products from the five states in the Southeast.These products range from sachet and table water, rice products, bread products, confectionaries, local snacks, honey, spices, liquid soap, car wash, as well as processed and packaged farm produce.The bulk of the registration came from the water business, especially those that came to seek for re-registration.”

According to him, the turnout of products passing NAFDAC’s verification and registration has been encouraging in the zone.