The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI has advised the federal government to hold a stakeholders meeting on ways to transform the manufacturing sector.
Director-General of LCCI, Mr Muda Yusuf, made the suggestion in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN in Lagos.
He said that such meeting would enable government to formulate
more favourable policies that would positively transform the manufacturing sector.
Yusuf said that improvement in the manufacturing sector would encourage vocational education and drastically reduce the rate of unemployment among youths.
According to him, the meeting is necessary because the manufacturing sector only accounted for five per cent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the last six months.
“The low output of the sector is due to policy somersault, multiple taxation, inconsistent power supply and illegal importation of goods into the country.
“These issues have lingered for so long and something has to be done to check them and rebound the industries,” Yusuf said.
Yusuf suggested that the government should initiate more policies that would revive the manufacturing sector.
He said the importation of fake textile materials and the harsh business environment had hindered the desired change in the textile industry. Yusuf said that the textile industry had little or no sign of improvement even with the N100 billion intervention funds given to the sector.
NAN recalls that Mr Herbert Ajayi, a former President of Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Mines, Agriculture and Industry, NACCIMA, said that about 800 Nigerian companies were shut down between 2009 and 2011.
Ajayi said that the closure was due to harsh business environment, saying that many of those still in operating had serious challenges to be classified as ‘ailin