20 August 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS – TEXTILES manufacturers in Nigeria are worried by the high cost of low pour fuel oil, LPFO, diesel and power in the country, Mr. Jaiyeola Olarenwaju, director general of the Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association, NTMA, has said.
Olarenwaju said the development has combined with failing infrastructure to make things very difficult for the textile industries in Nigeria, urging a review by government of the recent hike in electricity tariff and the arrest of the escalating costs of low pour fuel oil and diesel.
“We cannot compete with imported textiles under the current business environment. If within one year the market is saturated with imported textiles, local industries will have problems selling, and many of them will certainly close down,” he said.
He added: “The government has to do something on these (price/tariff) increases if they want progress in the sector. I don’t really know why government should increase the cost of LPFO that we are producing locally”.
Further lamenting the inclement operational weather manufacturers have to deal with in the country, the director general said inadequate power supply from the national grid has forced manufacturers into huge investment in private power geneeration, with telling effect on cost of goods.
He said: “The supply of electricity from the public source leaves manufacturer with no options than running on private generating plants.
“Take, for instance, a textile company consuming 1,000,000 litres of diesel in a month and three million litres of LPFO a month, the increase in the prices of the product will definitely reflect on the price of their products”.