The Central Bank of Nigeria’s recent strategic move to revive and grow Nigeria’s cotton, textile and garments economic sector and to improve domestic production of cotton from about 80,000 tonnes in 2018 to 300,000 tonnes by 2020, is one of the economic news items that should not be ignored.
Given the need for the success of the programme, a National Committee comprising representatives of CBN, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Federal Ministry of Water Resources, Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment, governments of Kano, Kaduna, Katsina, Gombe and Zamfara states has been set up.
It is encouraging that CBN identified not only the need for the revival of the textiles and garments sector of the economy but has also taken bold steps towards achieving that. The importance of that sector can hardly be a subject of argument. Unfortunately, the sector lost steam, no thanks to a multiplicity of adverse factors including smuggling of textiles and finished clothes into the country, high cost of production occasioned mainly by high energy/power costs, and an insufficient quantity of cotton resulting from low yielding cotton seeds.
But more important, efforts of CBN through the intervention scheme can be sabotaged if smuggling is not curbed. It is imperative therefore, that the Nigeria Customs should be given marching orders to police the borders effectively – to prevent smuggling. In the main, when the country becomes a net exporter of cotton, textiles and garments, smuggling will be wiped out or drastically reduced without any major threat to the economy.