The Federal Government is committed to bringing back dormant tanneries and luring more capital into the nation’s economy’s tannery industry.
The Minister of State for Industry, Trade, and Investment, Amb. Mariam Yalwaji Katagum, stated this in Abuja, during a meeting with the National Steering Committee (NSC) on the implementation of the National Leather and Leather Products Policy, led by its Chairman, Professor Mohammed Kabir Yakubu.
Katagum.
Katagun said that her Ministry decided, in accordance with its mandate, to start the machinery needed to revive the non-operational tanneries and draw more capital into the tannery sector, noting, “so far the Ministry’s direct interventions to the Leather sub-sector had been limited to capital allowance on plant machinery, issuance of certificates under the backward integration programme, provision of common facilities to MSMEs operators to facilitate and strengthen expansion.”
“Currently, just 18 out of 40 tanneries that were operational in 2000 are still in operation with a total installed capacity for processing 250,000 skins per day up to wet blue level.”
She said the Ministry used its agencies—the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the Industrial Training Fund (ITF),