The Senate has appealed to the Federal Government to ban the importation of
textiles in the country for a period of five years to enhance the production of
local textile materials.
This followed the debate on a motion sponsored by Sen. Kabir Barkiya
(APC-Katsina Central) during plenary on “Urgent need to revamp the nation’s
comatose textile industry”.
The Upper chamber also appealed to the Federal Government to provide the
necessary infrastructural facilities especially power supply to local textile
manufacturing companies to revamp the industry and providing them with soft
loans and easy access to credit facilities through the Bank of Industry.
Debating the motion, Barkiya noted that the textile industry in the country
played a significant role in the manufacturing sector of the Nigerian economy
with a record of over 140 companies in the 1960s and 1970s.
He noted that the industry had witnessed a massive decline in the last two
decades with many textile companies such as Kaduna Textile, Kano Textile, and
Aba Textile among others closing shops and throwing their workers into the job
market.
The lawmaker further said that government policies like an increase in
taxation, high cost of production, trade liberalisation resulting in massive
importation of textile materials had negatively affected the production of
local textile materials.
Barkiya said that the resuscitation of the industry would provide
additional revenue and assist government to diversify the nation’s economy.
In his remark, the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan said that as
Nigeria had signed the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement and cannot stop
trading easily with other people as the only thing left is up our game by being
competitive.
