A major plastic products manufacturing company in Nigeria, Innoson Technical and Industries, has called on the Federal Government to make favourable policies that will promote and encourage manufacturing in the country.
Innocent Chukwuma, chairman of the company who made the call while speaking to BusinessDay, lamented that the five percent levy increase on the importation of plastic raw materials into the country has increased the price of plastic products manufactured in the country.
He said that before now, some African countries were buying from Nigeria, regretting that with the levy, the market has shifted to other African countries, particularly Ghana.
Chukwuma said the major challenge of Nigerian manufacturers is the unfavourable business environment and government policies that do not promote industrialisation.
He said that Eleme Petrochemical Company does not have the capacity to produce and supply the plastic raw materials needed by companies in Nigeria.
“As at today, we have paid for more than two weeks but we have not got the materials in our factory, we are idle because we have no materials”, he said.
“You can understand what I mean, before the levy some people used to import the raw materials to complement that of Eleme and that brought down our price and enabled us to compete favourably with other African countries but today the market is shifting to other African countries”.
REGIS ANUKWUOJI, Enugu
