The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria has identified the shortage of foreign exchange, poor electricity supply, high lending interest rates, multiple taxes and levies as some of the challenges confronting the sector.

Chairman, MAN, Edo/Delta branch, Okwara Udensi, said this on Thursday at the 36th annual general meeting of the association, themed, ‘Nigeria’s struggling economy/unstable macroeconomic policies: Lessons and challenges for the manufacturing sector’, in Benin City.

Udensi also listed low patronage of made-in- Nigeria products and congestion at the Lagos ports as factors adversely affecting the productivity of the sector.

He urged the government to decentralise power generation, adopt and implement the Executive Order 003 so that Ministries, Departments and Agencies could give preference to local manufacturers in their procurement of goods and services.

“The major problems facing our members are shortage of foreign exchange,  poor electricity supply, high lending interest rates, multiple taxes and levies.

“The manufacturing sector is facing a lot of challenges and the Federal Government of Nigeria has not given the sector the needed support to provide economic growth and development.  The government urgently needs to provide adequate bailout for the manufacturing sector to avoid a total collapse of the sector.

“It is our expectation that these identified challenges be addressed by government to move the country from an import dependent to a self-sufficient and export-based one. This can only be made possible with consistency in government policies that will guarantee the required enabling environment so that manufacturing companies are able to operate at minimum capacity.”

A professor of Economics, University of Benin, Mercy Anyiwe, while delivering her lecture, urged the manufacturers to improve their products with technology so as to get good value in the international market.