The Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, said on Tuesday in Abuja that the country saved more than N300 billion after placing restrictions on cement importation in 2012.
Aganga disclosed this to State House correspondents after a meeting with some private sector players, presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo.
The minister said the feat was achieved because government did not issue any import licence for cement importation since 2012.
He said the meeting was summoned by the vice president to iron out modalities for the take-over of government shares in Onigbola Cement Factory in Benin Republic.
Aganga said the cement factory was a joint venture involving the Federal Government and the Republic of Benin.
“The meeting was to work out modalities for the take-over of Nigeria’s shares in the joint venture following government’s decision to sell its own shares to the private sector,” the minister said.
He said government’s efforts to boost local production had forced down the importation of cement and increased job creation locally.
“The importation of cement has come down, for example, because there was no importation at all in 2012. This saved for us N300 billion,” Aganga said.
He debunked claims of shortfall in the supply of cement, saying: “If all the cement factories in Nigeria worked at full capacity, the country would be producing 26 to 28 million tonnes of cement.
“That is much higher than the demand as of today.
“In fact, for the first time ever, we are exporting cement outside Nigeria and that is a major achievement.
“In fact, if we need to supplement that again, we will still get from the company in Benin Republic.”
Aganga said that textiles and vegetable oil imports had also fallen by at least 56 per cent and 52 per cent respectively.
He said: “What this means is that imports came down from about N9.5 trillion or thereabout to about N5.3 trillion.
“What that also means is that we have saved about N4.2 trillion and that has gone to increase our external reserve.”
He said government policy on cement had not only achieved availability of cement but increased capacity in cement production and created direct and indirect jobs close to two million.
The minister also announced that government had concluded plans to restructure the operations of the small- and medium-scale enterprises.
He said the restructuring would cut across all sectors of the economy and in particular the automobile and petrochemical sectors.
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