Dead local industries may come to life again as the Federal Government has secured some measures from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to combat dumping.
Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah disclosed to newsmen in Lagos that efforts are underway to revitalize local industries and discourage dumping, which has killed local production.
He said, “One of my first official outings as minister was to represent Nigeria at the World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference in Nairobi, Kenya; and discuss Nigeria’s place in the global multilateral trading system.
“One of the areas we addressed is dumping and I am happy that we got some relief, anti-dumping relief that we are going to use to promote local industries. Also, on one of our recent trips to the United Arab Emirates, I was privileged to sign, on behalf of Nigeria, an important bilateral agreement on Trade Promotion and Protection.”
He said the influx of finished goods from Europe and Asian countries into the Nigerian market is killing the nation’s local industries and hampering its bid for industrialisation.
“We are in the era of globalisation as people like to call it, and what it means is that people are constantly trying to sell their goods, so we have a particular responsibility to ourselves to make sure that the goods that are coming here do not result to dumping.
“We are competing with the treasuries of the developed world where they are in effect subsidising goods that are coming into countries in the developing world and hampering industrialisation,” he said.
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