THE Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN yesterday
pledged to bail out the dwindling textile and
garment industry by granting credit facility as
well as fight against smuggling of its products
with the collaboration with other government
agencies.
In another development, the CBN said it will
sanction the delinquent debtors whose names
appeared on the list of debtors published by the
banks recently.
CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele
Addressing newsmen after the Bakers Committee
Meeting in Lagos yesterday, the CBN said that
delinquent debtors would be sanctioned
appropriately. “We will sanction them if they fail
to meet up with their obligation with the bank. In
few days, the sanctions will be taken and the
banks will continue to publish names of
delinquent debtors from quarter to quarter,” Mr.
Kolawole Balogun, representing the Banking
Director supervision , CBN has said.”
Meanwhile, the Governor of CBN, Mr. Godwin
Emefiele gave assurance of the apex bank’s
commitment to reviving the industry during the
meeting with Cotton, Textile and Garment
industry, CTG in Lagos.
According to him “The Federal Government under
the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari
has stated its readiness to revive the ailing
industry in order to create employment and the
CBN is also willing to bail out the operators, not
only in credit facility but also in other areas like
tackling smuggling, creating enabling environment
etc. “We are going to provide cheap long term
fund with single digit lending rate and continue
our complimentary efforts to addressing other key
infrastructure,”Emefiele said.
He said “Finance is not the major obstacles to
this sector but smuggling. There are many other
challenges but with our collective collaboration
this meeting will immediately resolve these
issues” He lamented the demise of many
industries in view of the fact that the sub sector
that once employed over one million hard working
Nigerians is now almost dominated by imports
from Asia.
According to him. “Between 1970 and 1980s,
textile industries were spread across the country,
with many mills located in Kaduna, Lagos, Funtua,
Gusau, Asaba, Aba, Kano and host of other cities.
There were well over 150 vibrant textile mills
operating at close to full production capacities
and this sector accounted for well over a million
direct and indirect jobs, second only to the
government as an employer of labour but now the
story is different.”
He frowned at the abandoned and dilapidated
structures of these textile companies spread
across the country, saying “CTG companies began
to feel the pinch of the rather unstable political
environment, policy somersaults, massive and
unfettered smuggling of substandard Asian
products into the country, high production costs
due to obsolete machineries, low level
technologies and poor state of the country’s
infrastructure, especially power.”
He noted that the sector with over 150 vibrant
mills can only boost of less than 20 textile
companies, which he said was sad as the sectyor
now employs less than 50,000 persons.
According to him, Banks who were many years
ago were falling over themselves to lend to the
sector were suddenly left with huge non
performing loans after the bubble burst. Many
banks were stuck with specialised and obsolete
equipment that coud not be easily disposed of.
This period heralded the beginning of the thorny
relationship between banks and textiles
companies.”
He further disclosed that one of the measures
taken by the CBN to combat smuggling was
restriction of Foreign Exchange, FX to importers.
According to him “Since the CBN has no mandate
to out rightly ban the importation of any product
into the country, the bank recently included
textiles as one of the 41 items excluded from the
FX sales from the Nigerian FX market. Given the
challenges, the CBN is currently playing catalytic
role in the power sector as the bank launched the
N213 billion Nigeria Electricity Market
Stabilisation Facility, NEMSF designed to help
resolve liquidity challenges in the electricity sector
and settle debt owed to gas supplies in the power
sector.”’
Responding on behalf of the stakeholders, Leader
of the Textiles Mills Association of Nigeria, Mrs
Grace Adereti commended the CBN Governor for
the concern and interest shown in the sector.
According to her “We must thank you as you are
the first Governor of CBN to call the various
stakeholders for a meeting of this nature and we
believe the apex bank will bail us out as it did to
some other sectors since we are the largest
employer of labour after government in the past.
It is a sad moment that the industry has dropped
from being the second largest employer of labour
to the least. Smuggling and harsh operating
environment has been the bane of this sector and
we believe that the sector would come back to
life with your assistance.”
www.vanguardngr.com/2015/08/cbn-to-bailout-textile-industry-sanction-bank-debtors/#sthash.qv8nlK8u.dpuf

Kool

Revival of textile industry will have a chain effect on Nigerian Economy if well managed.
Kudos to CBN

Texiles r coming back

Buh wait ohh.. why is every sector of d economy waking up?? Buhari nevr Jail anybody nah