ECONOMY: Reviving Nigeria’s Textile Industry

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Oct 9 2002 (IPS) - Nigeria has taken steps to revive its ailing textile industry through intensive local production.

A ministerial committee, mandated to make the country self-sufficient in textile production by 2006, has been set up and will submit its recommendations to the government soon.

It will examine and recommend measures to stop the dumping of foreign fabrics into Nigeria. It will also recommend measures to encourage the export of local textiles and garments abroad.

Jerry Gana, Minister of Information and National Orientation, announced the banning of the imported fabrics in Abuja, the administrative capital of Nigeria, last week.

”The ban is temporary. It will remain in place long enough to get the ailing textile industries back on their feet and revive cotton production in Zamfara, Kebbi, Katsina, Bauchi and Gombe, (five cotton producing states in northern Nigeria),” Gana explained.

The suspension, according to the minister, would remain in force until the Standard Organisation of Nigeria, the Nigeria Customs Service and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria work out the specifications of the categories of fabrics that could be allowed into the country.

”Government is determined to revive the textile sector. And it has directed that uniforms for military and para-military agencies must now be sourced locally,” he said.

Local textile factories also have been offered concessions by government, such as reduction of duties on certain raw materials, machinery and spare parts.

Gana said: ”Our country is now a dumping ground for cheap and inferior goods from abroad. What we are about to do is to ensure that our own local industries do not unnecessarily suffer as a result of the WTO agreement. The signing of the (WTO) agreement made it possible for some unscrupulous Nigerians to import virtually anything from toothpick to 78 different varieties of toothpaste”.

The problems facing Nigeria’s textile industries started in Jan 1997 when the military government of the late General Sani Abacha lifted a ban on import of some products, including textile articles.

Abacha had wanted Nigeria to comply with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement and improve the quality of locally produced fabrics, through exposure to foreign competition, and make textile products affordable to consumers through reduced prices.

Since the fall of the Abacha regime in 1999, the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring workers of Nigeria has called for a temporary ban on textile imports.

But, in banning the import of fabrics, Gana said the government was taking cautious steps to avoid the pitfalls the Abacha regime plunged Nigerian into. Nigeria signed the WTO agreement in 1994 without proper understanding of its implications, he added.

The agreement opened Nigerian markets to all kinds of imported goods and turned the country into a dumping ground, which subsequently led to the collapse of some local industries.

Since the local fabrics could not compete with cheap imported fabrics and imported second-hand clothes that flooded the market due to the WTO agreement, more than half of Nigeria’s textile industries had been closed, while the few still operating are producing far below capacity. Textile warehouses are flooded with unsold products.

The number of local textile factories declined from 175 in the mid-1980s to below 40 by the middle of this year, according to official figures made available to IPS this week. About 30 textile industries reportedly closed shop in 2000 due to unfavourable production climate.

”Nigeria has the natural resources to produce the best clothing materials in the world. But these resources are not being harnessed properly while increasing cost of production due to the problem of electricity, fuel, water and labour, has hindered optimal production by most companies,” says Emmanuel Amadi, deputy secretary-general of the Nigerian Textile Workers Association.

Industry watchers say the ban on imported fabric will boost agriculture and revive local textile industry, if government can ensure that the customs service can check smuggling of cheap fabrics through the country’s porous borders.

But, operators in the informal sector see the ban differently. They are already counting their losses.

”The ban will mean loss of business for those of us who are in the second-hand clothing business. Not many people can afford new materials and, more so, Nigerian fabric is costly because of the cost of production,” says Charles Okonkwo, a boutique owner at the popular Yaba market in Lagos.

‘’Government expects its new measure to produce tangible results in the next four years. The measures are expected to generate an annual income of one billion U.S. dollars from local textile production,” according to a government official.

ECONOMY: Reviving Nigeria’s Textile Industry

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

LAGOS, Oct 9 2002 (IPS) - Nigeria has taken steps to revive its ailing textile industry through intensive local production.
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