The Federal Government announced that it will focus on improving access to power and infrastructure for manufacturers to improve Nigeria’s manufacturing capacity in Africa.
This was disclosed by Nigeria’s Trade Minister, Niyi Adebayo in an interview with Channels TV on Sunday.
He also stated that with Nigeria being 200 million of Africa’s 1.3 billion target market, the FG wants to make Nigeria the most attractive market to do business.
What the Minister is saying
The Minister stated that the major challenge right now is security, and there is the issue of power and then, there is the issue of general infrastructure.
“There are also delays at the ports and things like that, we have been given and explaining what the government is doing to solve these problems.
“With regards to power, we are aware that there is a power problem, so however, based on that, what we are doing is creating special economic zones and special industrial parks,” Adebayo said.
He added that the industrial parks would have embedded power, and all the infrastructure necessary, and what anyone setting up a factory needs to do is go into that industrial park, have power and infrastructure.
“Another thing we are doing is that many industries are setting up their power plants, and the FG is spending money with regards to setting up gas pipelines all over the country so that you can easily tap into the gas pipelines and access the gas and power your plants,” he said.
He stated that these are just some of the things the FG is doing to help the manufacturing sector. He also stated that because the price manufacturers feel they are being charged for gas is rather too high, the FG is engaging with the Ministry of Petroleum Resources to see how it can help make the price of gas available at a competitive plan for manufacturers.
“If you want to do business in Africa, you must start from Nigeria, Africa has a 1.3 billion ( people) market, out of that, over 2 million is in Nigeria, so your best bet is to start from Nigeria and move out to Africa,” he added.
In case you missed it
Nairametrics reported earlier that the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria called on the FG to halt the planned N10 naira per litre tax on sweetened and non-alcoholic beverages (Sugar Tax) which was proposed by the Finance Minister as part of its recent Domestic Revenue Mobilisation.