The minister of budget and planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma has said that there are not enough locally made goods because of limited production.
Speaking on NTA network programme ‘Good Morning Nigeria’ monitored by News Gazette in Lagos, Udoma who was responding to a question on his impression of made-in-Nigeria goods and whether he would ordinarily buy a locally-made product said “it depends on the product.”
“The fact of the matter is that we do not have enough made-in-Nigeria available. So, we have to increase the production of made-in-Nigeria products; we have to improve the quality of locally-made goods. We want people to be proud, take pride in the local products.
“We were not pushed to the wall; before we had high oil price we could import and we were so relaxed. But now it is important that we concentrate on patronising made-in-Nigeria products,” he said.
The minister noted that Nigerian-made products are unique and comparatively better.
He further said enough potential abound in the country “to expand our production, expand our exports.”
“Let me give you one small example. I remember I took a bottle of Nigerian groundnuts to the United States. And I packed it by mistake and discovered it when I was unpacking in the U. S. where I went to visit my brother. So, I opened the bottle of groundnuts and there was a party in his house and we distributed the groundnuts. I heard the Americans saying ‘wow.’ And they asked ‘can you bring us more of this?’
“The Nigerian groundnut (they call it peanuts in the U. S.) naturally has unique taste. Most of the groundnuts in America, they have to add salt. So, we have products which have international acceptance, international demand. What we have to do is come together, work together to promote the export,” he said.
He said the present administration had designed a strategy to promote locally-made products and discourage sole dependence on crude oil.
“When we came in newly, it was clear to us that the structure of the economy was simply unsustainable, a structure that depends on one commodity-crude oil- which provides almost 80 per cent of government revenue and 90 per cent of external earnings. So, there was the need to move Nigeria from the importing consuming nation. And when we came out with a document in the strategic implementation plan for the 2016 budget in the early part of this year, we set out clearly that one of the main objectives is to promote made-in-Nigeria (goods). So, we set that target at the beginning of the year,” he said.