The Federal Government is planning to suspend the payment of import duties on staple food items, drugs, and other essential items for an initial period of six months as a measure to curb inflation.
This was contained in an Executive Order expected to be issued by the President titled, “Inflation Reduction and Price Stability (Fiscal Policy Measures) Order 2024.”
The document also includes plans to waive levies on fertilisers, poultry feed, flour, and grains.
The proposed Executive Order is also expected to empower the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Nigeria to devise a plan for offering low-interest loans to the agriculture, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing sectors.
The import duty and other tariffs are to be suspended on staple food items; raw materials and other direct inputs used for manufacturing, Inputs for agriculture production including fertilisers, seedlings, and chemicals, pharmaceutical products, poultry feeds, flour and grains for six months.
The Executive Order will also lead to the suspension of the 7.5% VAT on diesel, select food items and semi-processed staple food items such as noodles and pasta, raw-material inputs for the manufacture of food items, electricity and public transportation, as well as agricultural inputs and produce and pharmaceutical products for the rest of the year.
It is not clear if the President will go ahead with issuing and signing the Executive Order.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.