The Senator Hope Uzodimma led Imo State government, has commenced discussions with some reputable in­terested industrialists from South Korea for the establish­ment of a Smart City Project.

The project when completed, is ex­pected to create over 500,000 jobs for the people of the state.

The Commis­sioner for Budget, Economic Planning and Statistics, Dr. Christopher .C. Osuala, revealed that the state government has already earmarked an estimated 2,000 to 6,000 hectares of land for the project, which would gulp a whopping US$20 billion.

The project is to be sited at Emeabiam, Umuguma and Okuku in the Owerri West Council, Azara Obiato and Mbaitoli.

Osuala, while speaking to newsmen led by the Spe­cial Adviser (Networking) to Senator Hope Uzodimma, On­wuzuruike Chantel Adanna Chinyere, in his office, disclosed that the project is being packaged to become a complete modern City with markets, filling sta­tions and regular power sup­ply and sundry modern state of the art facilities.

“I was in South Korea in June 2022 to talk to these in­dustrialists and they visited Governor Uzodimma last December during which they indicated interest to invest a whopping sum of $20 billion in Imo, build electric vehicles with their partners in South Korea and as soon as the MoU is completed, they will come with their money and the state government will provide land for them.”

Speaking in the impact of the state’s 2023 budget to the people, Osuala said that the budget of ‘Expansion of Wealth’ is making more in­frastructures available for the people such as building and rehabilitation of roads, hospitals, schools and at the same time expanding Wealth through judicious, efficient and transparent management of resources.

For some years now, he said the state government got an average grant of $10 billion from the World Bank which is being invested in the area of infrastructures, which entails community engagement, add­ing that the state’s budget can now be assessed online unlike in the past.

The state, he said, now oc­cupies an enviable position in budget transparency as rated by the World Bank, which was achieved through deepening of the budget understanding.

“We do the budgetary mon­itoring and evaluation and on quarterly bases, we report to the World Bank and any state that the World Bank feels is do­ing well it (WB) rewards it with N150 million grant and Imo has been getting this based on prop­er budget planning to the ad­miration of the World Bank.”