The Bangladesh Government is offering to collaborating with the Nigerian Government to develop the Nigerian textile industry.
This was made known by the High Commissioner of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh to Nigeria, Shameem Ahsan while speaking during a business interactive session and with journalists in Abuja.
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According to him, Bangladesh was in a valid position to partner with Nigeria and could help share knowledge on the industry because of the wealth of experience it has, being the second-largest garment industry in the world after China.
Ahsan also said that since Bangladesh has at least 5 million people working in the industry with 80% of the millions of textile workers being women, it could help Nigeria close gender parity gap in the workplace.
Apart from the textile industry, Ahsan said his country would also work with the Nigerian government on achieving its target as regards to power. He said that the power sector had risen in recent times to 22, 000 megawatts from 5, 000 megawatts in 2009 in Bangladesh.
What you should know: This offer by Bangladesh is coming after the recent talks about the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) investing N100 billion in the textile industry. The CBN said that developing the local industries such as the textile/garment industries and other Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in the country was needed as it would bring about growth of the country and her citizens, create employments and boost the foreign reserve of the nation.
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According to the Director of Corporate Communication Department, Isaac Okoroafor , the country cannot continue to rely solely on oil and gas revenue as it is not organic due to the lack of technological know-how and expertise that bring about the revenue hence the need to concentrate more on another sector which is the local industries/manufacturing sector.