President, Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has called for specific manufacturing policies to support and address the sector’s perennial challenges to drive industrialisation and economic growth over the next decade.
He gave the advice at the 2nd Adeola Odutola’s lecture to commemorate the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) 50th Annual General Meeting (AGM), themed: “Agenda Setting for Industrialising Nigeria in the next decade.”
Dangote also stressed the need for a shift in policy approach and strategy to reposition the manufacturing sector for growth over the next 10 years.
According to him, it is imperative that the familiar challenges limiting the pace of industrialisation are frontally addressed while setting a clear-cut agenda for the next 10 years.
He, however, noted that the current government policies, if fully implemented, are good enough to address most of the challenges beguiling the manufacturing sector.
According to him, experience in various parts of the world showed that industrialisation drives economic growth and improved living standards, evidenced in the high output and per capita income in industrialised countries.
He noted that countries smaller than Nigeria such as Singapore and South Korea, had average per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $65,233 and $31,846 respectively due to the level of industrialisation they had achieved.
Nigeria has the potential and wherewithal for industrialisation given its vibrant and entrepreneurial population as well as its vast array of natural resources.
Industrialisation policy
The industrialist said in Nigeria, the policy dispositions and implementation strategies of successive Nigerian governments on industrialisation sought to create more employment opportunities, scale up the production of consumer goods and generate wealth.
He said that although these dispositions and strategies formed the kernel of public sector policies and planning, the country’s rate of industrialisation was slow.
This, he said, reflected in the low contribution of manufacturing to GDP, poor capacity utilisation and constrained export of manufactured products within and outside the continent.
“From the foregoing, it is evident that manufacturing is pivotal to industrialisation as no country in the world has ever industrialised or attained ‘developed nation status’ without having a thriving manufacturing sector.
“Consequently, any journey towards industrialisation must place strong emphasis on creating an enabling environment for manufacturing.
“You will agree with me that Nigeria has the potential and wherewithal for industrialisation given its vibrant and entrepreneurial population as well as its vast array of natural resources,” he said.
Contribution to GDP
Dangote noted that in recent years, Nigeria’s manufacturing sector’s contribution to GDP hovered around 9%; which he described as low, adding that previous efforts at industrialisation through manufacturing had not yet yielded the desired result.
He attributed the sub-optimal performance of the sector to the existence of binding constraints such as acute shortage of foreign exchange, dearth of long term funds, limited infrastructure, policy inconsistency and others.
He stressed that several factors such as security and rule of law, industry oriented government policy, adequate infrastructure, a well-developed Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector need to be in place to accelerate growth.
He added that building human capacity, development of core industries, industry oriented research and development, and embracing technology would drive the country’s industrialisation agenda.
“Nigeria needs to henceforth intensify efforts at promoting industrialisation with specific focus on the attainment of the following targets in the next 10 years.”
These include: 15% manufacturing sector growth, 20% manufacturing contribution to GDP, 15% growth in export of manufactured products, and 10% increase in the share of manufacturing to total export merchandise.
“The country also needs stronger inter-industry linkage between SMEs and large corporations, improved manufacturing contribution to government tax revenue and 20% increase in manufacturing employment,” he added.
Dangote tasked all tiers of government to consult relevant stakeholders when taking far reaching decisions on key sectors of the economy.
This, he said, would make it much easier for manufacturers to make long-term business plans.
“In addition, policies that have been ‘tried-and-tested’ should be backed with an Act of parliament to give them legal backing and make them less susceptible to arbitrary changes by successive governments.
“With the collective effort of all stakeholders, it is feasible to move Nigeria from ‘developing nation’ to ‘newly industrialised nation’ status within the next 10 years,” he said. (NAN)
