Senate urges FG to ban textile importation for 5 years

The Senate yesterday called on the Federal Government to ban importation of textile materials for five years to revamp the comatose textile industry in Nigeria.

The call was sequel to the adoption of a motion by Senator Kabir Abdullahi Barkiya (APC, Katsina Central).

The Senate asked the government to provide infrastructure that would enhance the nation’s manufacturing sector.

It also appealed to the government to sustain border closure to a reasonable time to ensure value chain of cotton and garment productions in the country.

Barkiya blamed poor power supply as the major cause of decline of the textile industry.

He said the textile industry had played significant role in the manufacturing sector of the Nigerian economy with a record of over 140 companies in the 60’s and 70’s.

He said such government policies as increase in taxation, high cost of production and trade liberalisation that resulted in massive importation of textile materials had also negatively affected the production of local textile materials.

He said the textile industry had witnessed a massive decline in the last two decades with many companies such as Kaduna Textile, Kano Textile and Aba Textile closing shops and throwing their workers into the job market.

He urged the federal government to encourage local textile manufacturing companies by providing them with soft loans and easy access to credit facilities through the Bank of Industry.

Senate President Ahmad Lawan said saince Nigeria had signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, “we have to be prepared for the repercussions. We cannot stop trading easily with other people”.