Mr Richard-Mark Mbaram, Managing Director, AgroNigeria, says that the Federal Government’s suggestion to divert forex to other profitable economic activities will provide protection for local producers of agro commodities.
Mbaram made the assertion while speaking on Monday in Lagos against the backdrop of the Federal Government ’s suggestion to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to stop forex to food importers.
He said that the most striking implication was that it was a positive move to create hurdles on the part of food and agro commodity importers.
“There are particularly wide ranging implications for agricultural productivity and development where the government decides to go tough on importation leveraging monetary policy tools at its disposal.
“The most striking implication is a positive one in that it basically creates a situation where hurdles are placed on the path of importers of food and other Agro commodities.
“This makes it more expensive for them to finance these imports. It must be kept in mind that these commodities are not in themselves banned, but that they are merely being handed hostile terms.
“The key benefit is that it provides some measure of protection for the local producers of such commodities and its derivatives,’’ Mbaram said.
He, however, called for more secure land borders as well as the entrenched corruption in the system through which these products find their way into the country to compromise the good intentions of government.
“To this end, I advocate for a review of the customs and excise regime in the country with a view to engaging all stakeholders in the private and public sector.
“The objective will be to ensure that those private entities that have capacity to weigh in and provide ideas on mitigating the problem of our porous land borders are leveraged and mainstreamed into a nationally coordinated effort,” he said.
According to Mbaram, infrastructure needs to be addressed holistically in order to create the needed ecosystem for Agribusiness in particular to thrive.
AgroNigeria is the organiser of the Feed Nigeria Summit 2019 (FNS2019), an annual programme bringing together stakeholders in the agriculture space to thinker on challenges impeding the sector and proffer solutions that will guide policies.
Mbaram said that the FNS 2019, tagged “Unlocking Prosperity through Partnership’’ is scheduled to hold in between Aug. 27 and Aug. 28 in Abuja.
“In this regard, government’s embrace of the Africa Development Bank’s (AFDB) Special Agro-Industrial Zones Project is a massively good move as it seeks to enhance agro-industrialization through the provision of targeted infrastructure in locales of high agro-commodity production.
The SAPZ Programme is the fulcrum of this year’s Feed Nigeria Summit.
