Manufacturers acquire local machinery as forex concerns slow importation

Nigerian manufacturers are increasingly acquiring locally fabricated machinery as foreign exchange scarcity makes importation of factory equipment difficult.

Dele Oyeku, director of extension and linkages, Federal Institute of Industrial Research, Oshodi (FIIRO), confirmed that Nigerian manufacturers are buying more of locally fabricated equipment from FIIRO owing to foreign exchange scarcity.

“Manufacturers also buy machines locally because they source more of their inputs in Nigeria now. The imported machines many of them have are not suitable for these local raw materials,” Oyeku said at a factory tour of Interstreet Messenger Limited in Lagos.

Frank Udemba Jacobs, president, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), also confirmed this, saying that factories are retooling as the push for local input preference continues to gain traction.

“We are increasingly looking inwards. We have embraced resource-based and import-substitution industrialisation. While we keep exploring local inputs, we know this could need retooling and adjustment of machinery. We believe that this is the only way forward now,” Jacobs said.

John Kachikwu, CEO of John Tudy Interbiz, a food processor and exporter to the United States, said manufacturers are changing machines because the foreign equipment they have cannot blend with local raw materials they are now getting.

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