Importers can now bring in textile and furniture items subject to 10 percent import duty.
The Federal Government has subsisted this for the next 12 months.
Items that are specifically affected are lace materials, carpets, base fabrics and yarns.
Policy twists are strange and fatal as it assumes that the nation is in dire crisis from shortages of the two items.
The idea is that the nation desires the window period in unrestricted imports to tackle the shortage gaps.
Expect that the presidential initiatives to revamp the textile sector might mature soon into dividends in domestic sufficiency in textile manufacture at the end of the short period.
Both conjectures suffer a flight from reality, as the twists are more of expediency rather than reflecting any real measure of policy vigor.
Textile banning and the reality is that Nigerean markets have never really been in short supply of banned textile materials as smugglers have managed to overcome the Nigeria Customs Service to render the ban useless.
The unchecked imports lie at the heart of the problems of the textile sector and the local industry lacks the competitive edge.
Government recognizes the multifarious problems of the textile industry and the furniture sector.
Textile sector and furniture industry are too important to the national economy to be allowed to collapse under the weight of these problems considering their potentialsfor wealth creation and employment.
Experts believe, government must tackle these fundamental problems affecting local capacity rather than the obviously easier route of import liberalization, which undermines domestic efforts and in the end, will only delay the quest for national self-reliance in textile and furniture manufactures.
marketing@alchempro.com
