Stakeholders in the manufacturing sector have condemned the recent lifting of ban on importation of textile products into the country by the Federal Government
Taking on the government at separate fora last Friday, the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN) and the National Association of Chamber of Commerce Industry Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) decried the action.
Stakeholders in the manufacturing sector have condemned the recent lifting of ban on importation of textile products into the country by the Federal Government
Taking on the government at separate fora last Friday, the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN) and the National Association of Chamber of Commerce Industry Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) decried the action.
While President of the union, MrOladele Hunsu, expressed the displeasure with the decision, Mr Emmanuel Cobham, the Director-General of NACCIMA also said that the revocation of the ban would expose the Nigerian textile industry to serious danger.
Shipping Position Daily recalls that Comptroller-General, Nigeria Customs Service, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko Inde had last week announced that the Federal government had lifted the ban on the importation of textile and furniture products.
Dikko said at the official launching of the Common External Tariff (CET) in Lagos that textile, furniture and other items had been removed from the Import Prohibition List in order to boost the Tariff provisions.
But the NUTGTWN President; Mr Hunsu said the removal of the ban would further weaken the textile industry and eventually bring about its extinction, if the ban was not reversed.
He said,” as regards the removal of the ban on the importation of textile products, we, textile workers, really frown at it because it will only decrease the capacity of local textile manufacturers.
“Look at the Ankara and our other local fabrics, they are being relegated to the background, and we are now wearing imported fabrics, despite the ban on imported laces and so on.
“With the lifting of the ban, it will definitely make it worse, dumping will become a normal thing, and we will be importing unemployment and exporting employment to other countries, I see this as we destroying ourselves,’’ he said.
The NUTGTWN president urged that the textile industry in Nigeria be revived with the various measures that had hitherto been suggested before the borders were opened for imports.
“If it was a sector that was already booming, lifting the ban on importation of foreign products in such sectors may not mean harm, but definitely not the textile industry.
“The revival of the textile industry was one of the promises of this new administration and I think opening of the borders for importation of these products is not a form of revival but a betrayal of promises.
“It should be reversed,” he said.
But, the NACCIMA DG; Mr Cobham said lifting the embargo on importation of textile products would be counterproductive to government’s efforts to revive the moribund textiles sector of the economy.
He argued that: "We are mortgaging our economy; the economy will not grow under such circumstances. We now depend on China and India for things that can be locally produced.
"We need to protect our industries because there are various stages of development – when we crawl, fall, stand, walk, and within this period, we scrutinise ourselves for changes.
"The stage where we run is when the international community accepts that our products meet international standards and embrace them."
Cobham, however, said that the lifting of ban on importation of textile products could bring competition that would drive local textile manufacturers towards excellence.
"It is a challenge to local textile producers. No matter the odds against them, the more they produce and are in the market, the greater their chances of improvement."
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