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Diversification, vital to avert economic crisis – Aganga

By BusinessNews Staff on January 31, 2015

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr, Olusegun Aganga, on Thursday stated that Nigeria must diversify its economy to achieve economic development.
Aganga, who pointed this out during a facility tour to Sparkwest Steel Industries Limited in Ogun State, noted that the nation would remain poor forever if pays little or no attention to economic diversification.

He explained that the fall in oil price was a warning to Nigeria to as a matter of urgency, look for new avenues to generate revenue for the country, advising that the time is now to take full advantage of areas where the country has competitive advantages to diversify its economy.

The minister said industrial companies such as Sparkwest were vital to achieve economic diversification.

According to him, “It is industries like this that will help us diversify our economy. This is why the president launched the Nigeria Industrial Revolution Plan NIRP to focus on areas where we have competitive advantage. We have to also commend the Ogun State government because without them, none of the new 57 industries would have come up in the state. There is also the need for State and the Federal government to partner to achieve industrial revolution in the country.

“People are saying industries are dying, but they are not, but growing every day. In the last 4 years, about 57 new industries have come out of Ogun State. The president has visited Ogun State more than seven times to commission new factories. The same thing is happening in Abia State where Nigerian Breweries over the last 5 years have spent $1 billion having new plants in the country. The brewery is the biggest and the best in Africa. The governor of the State was telling us that most of the industries that left Aba five years ago, are coming back to Aba,” he added.

He said the NIRP was working but needs consistency and continuity for another 5 to 7 years to achieve its mandate, saying that if Nigeria continues with the initiative, it would diversify the economy, create millions of jobs and earn more foreign exchange from export of steel products from industries such as this.

“The days of relying only on crude oil are over. This is an opportunity for us to fully diversify our economy. I am very delighted that this government under President Goodluck Jonathan already has a plan to harness this opportunity to diversify the economy.”

Also speaking at the event, the Managing Director, Sparkwest Steel Industries Limited, Mr. Niyi Oyedele, said the company had grown out of an import business into a manufacturer of what it imports years ago to produce locally for the Nigeria‎n market.

He added that the journey so far had been turbulent, pointing out that import duties on raw materials has continued to plague the growth of industrial development.
He commended the minister for reversing the duty to 5 per cent saying that industries have continued to experience some level of growth in their operations.
“We are the sole suppliers to the telecoms industry, oil and gas and the power industry. It is almost like a monopoly, we have done lots of exports to countries like Ivory Coast, Cameroun, Ghana, Gabon, Peru and the likes,” he said.

According to him, the power industry is still a major challenge to industrial development, calling on the minister to get power industry to patronise local production.

“We are expanding our factory by building a rolling mill, we currently have a staff strength of 600, but we will increase it to 2500 by the time we complete the mill,” he said.

[ThisDay]

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