As part of efforts to re-position the State's economy, Kwara State Governor, Dr Abdulfatah Ahmed has said that the state government is working on strategies that will encourage commercial banks to play greater role in the financing of its economic development programmes.

Governor Ahmed who gave this indication when the Group Managing Director, First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Mr Ladi Balogun and his management team, paid him a courtesy visit added that commercial banks would be expected to expand its funding window of agriculture as agribusiness in the State.

"Agriculture is gradually been de-risked; so it is making it quite enabling for prospective investors to come in here to see how to take advantage of what we have on ground.

We have tried to make it as private sector driven as possible. We have quite a few individuals who have invested in processing which of course creates a lot of room for backward integration that a lot of farmers now go into structured large scale farming culture", the Governor added.

Dr Ahmed stressed that the prevailing economic challenges in the country makes it expedient to explore various strategies in financing economic development.

Responding, the GMD, Mr Ladi Balogun said the bank was exploring new ways of assisting the Kwara State Government in improving its Internally Generated Revenue.

According to him, the bank was ready to take similar initiative of co-operating with the state government in financing agriculture.