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Stakeholders in industrial sector have the urged Federal Government to provide infrastructure in the textile industry as it is the only way to revive the sector alive.
They said that for the government to say they are banning issuance of foreign exchange to textile companies is certainly not the right approach.
“It is only the masses that will suffer the hike in price, because leaders in power will go ahead and import textile materials in large quantities,” they added.
The President of Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria ( ABCON), Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe, said that it is only when the sector is provided with the right infrastructure that the sector would bounce back again.
Gwadabe, who was represented by the Financial Secretary of the Association, Mr. Adewumi Adewale at the inauguration of new Exco of Commerce and Industry Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CICAN), recently in Lagos, noted that government has not put anything in place that will encourage the textile industries that are moribund to take up and this cannot be a sudden affair, it has to be a gradual issue.
He stated that if the government is serious about reviving the textile industry, then it will take those moribund industries three years to come on board.
But in achieving this, he said there must be massive improvement in power supply because that is the major challenge facing the manufacturing sector.
Also speaking , the Managing Director of NISPO Porcelain Company Limited, Mr. Afam Mallinson Ukatu, said VAT increase from 5 percent to 10 percent would affect manufacturing sector and other businesses in the country.
Ukatu said that if government goes ahead to implement the increase, most manufacturers would be forced to shut down their factories here in Nigeria and relocate to others countries where tax are more friendly. He also said another area government need to look into is the issue of multiple taxation and harmonisation of taxes.
