- The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga disclosed at the weekend that for the past five years over 103 Nigeria export products have been rejected at the global market for not meeting acceptable international quality standards.
- Aganga disclosed this during the unveiling of the new office complex of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) in Abuja, stating that this is due to lack of accredited laboratories in the country where the products could be tested before being shipped abroad.
- He, however, said Nigeria now has an internationally-accredited laboratory in Lagos which would help to check the drift.
- He said,
“In the last five years Nigeria has more than 103 rejects. If you compare that to other African countries like South African and Ghana, who only have between 6 to 7 rejects, our is unacceptable. We are having this rejects because we did not have accredited laboratory in the country.” “We all say we want to diversify the economy with a view to increasing our income from non-oil products. But there is no way we can achieve this without having quality infrastructure such as the laboratory.”
- Aganga who recalled that Nigerians hitherto had to take farm produce like yam to Ghana for laboratory testing before exporting them to the UK, however, express confidence that things would change now with the new testing laboratory.
- Source: The Nation
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