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| Economy |
DEAD local industries may come to
life again, as the Federal Government has secured some measures from the World
Trade Organization to combat dumping. Minister of Industry, Trade and
Investment (MITI), Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah disclosed to newsmen in Lagos that
efforts are underway to revitalize local industries and discourage dumping,
which has killed local production.
His words: “One of my first official
outings as minister was to represent Nigeria at the World Trade Organisation
Ministerial Conference in Nairobi, Kenya; and discuss Nigeria’s place in the
global multilateral trading system. One of the areas we addressed is dumping
and I am happy that we got some relief, anti-dumping relief that we are going
to use to promote local industries. Also, on one of our recent trips to the
United Arab Emirates, I was privileged to sign, on behalf of Nigeria, an important
bilateral agreement on Trade Promotion and Protection.” Influx of finished
goods from Europe and Asian countries into the Nigerian market is killing the
nation’s local industries and hampering its bid for industrialisation.
Investigations by Financial Vanguard
revealed that in the last four years alone, Standards Organisation of Nigeria,
SON, destroyed substandard products worth N10 billion that found their way into
the country. Top among these goods were cables, wires, tyres, tomato paste in
tins and satchets; textile materials, among other household items and
consumables. Fielding questions on how he would tackle the influx of
substandard goods overwhelming SON and NAFDAC, the new Minister of Industry,
Trade and Investment (MITI), Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah said that among the sectors
mostly affected by dumping in the last several years is the cotton, garments
and textile sector. The minister said: “We are in the era of globalisation as
people like to call it, and what it means is that people are constantly trying
to sell their goods, so we have a particular responsibility to ourselves to
make sure that the goods that are coming here do not result to dumping. We are
competing with the treasuries of the developed world where they are in effect
subsidising goods that are coming into countries in the developing world and
hampering industrialisation.
