Ken Anyanwu, na t iona l secretary , Association of Leather and Allied Industrialists of Nigeria (ALAIN), an association of shoe, bag and belt makers in the country, has appealed to Nigerians to patronise locally made shoes and other finished leather goods to stimulate growth in the sector.
Anyanwu, in an nterview with Businessday in Aba, stated that a little action towards domestication of local footwear production would save Nigeria foreign exchange and provide jobs for the country’s growing population.
The Aba finished leather sector, said to be the biggest in West Africa, with about 40,000 people directly engaged in the manufacture of shoes, belts and bags and a production capacity of about one million pairs of shoes per week, currently produces for local and international markets, although unofficially.
Aba- made shoes and other finished leather products are popular in Cameroon , Cote d’ivoire , Ghana and other West and East African countries.
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Anyanwu explained that about one million pairs of footwear are informally exported from Aba, to other African countries, through Cameroun, which serves as a transit market, weekly.
He, however, lamented that most locally produced finished leather goods are not traceable to Nigeria, b e c au s e they often bear foreign labels, a development he attributed to Nigerians’ desire for foreign goods.
He urged local shoe manufacturers to be proud of their products by inscribing Made-in-nigeria on their products, saying that proper branding of locally made finished leather goods and formalisation of export trade in the sector would not only increase Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP), but would also help the Federal Government in economic planning and job creation.
