FG reiterates commitment to growing made-in-Nigeria market

The Federal Government has reiterated its commitment to
growing the made-in-Nigeria market in line with its
determination to create more jobs and generate wealth for
Nigerians.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun
Aganga, who disclosed this last week, during the inspection of
the Secure ID production plant for smart cards in Lagos, said
government’s policy on made-in-Nigeria products, which gave
priority to the patronage of locally-made products will, among
many other benefits, help curb the waste of foreign reserve on
what could be manufactured in the country.
Aganga said already, the launch of the Nigeria Industrial
Revolution Plan (NIRP) by President Goodluck Jonathan had
kick-started the diversification of the economy and revenue
source of the country since 2012.
According to the minister, for the first time in the history of
the nation, Nigeria has a robust and comprehensive plan,
which the current administration started implementing in
2012.
This, he noted, was to diversify the economy in the areas
where Nigeria had competitive and comparative advantage.
“The Federal Government is ahead of the present fall of oil
price today by focusing on agro-industrial processing such as
sugarcane to sugar under the Sugar Master Plan Policy that
has attracted $3 billion investment commitment; the
development of local content and job creation under the auto
policy and backward integration in cement and rice production,
among others,” he said.
“Our approach has always been value addition, using local
content, which had resulted to $14 billion investment into the
oil and petrochemical industry. We have created a gas
industrial park in Delta State mainly to provide a source of raw
materials in the petrochemical sector.”
He stated that the beauty of NIRP was that it looks into the
areas of competitive and comparative advantage and focuses
on how to reduce the cost of production and make products
produced in the country more competitive and easier for
Nigerians to afford.
The Minister also pointed out that to boost industrial
development, tariff adjustments were only being done on
sectorial basis, stressing that tariffs to individual companies
had been stopped since 2011.
“Our job as government is to provide the enabling environment
for you. We are not doing you a favour, it is our job. That is
our responsibility and I am delighted that my team is working
with your team at Secure ID to address issues raised,” he
observed.
The Chairman, Secure ID, Adedotun Sulaiman, noted that the
company had received significant support from the Ministry
and its parastatals with regard to its investment in the
modern plant, which, he said, had the capacity to manufacture
200 million smart cards in a year.
He urged government to review upward the tariff on
importation of finished sheet, smart cards and magnetic stripe
to enable them compete better with imported finished
products, while calling for a downward review of import duty
on raw materials to five per cent.