The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the National Leather and Leather Product Policy which is aimed at locally harnessing leather resources into finished products.
The Minister of Science and Technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, disclosed this to newsmen on Wednesday, following the FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said with the policy, Nigeria would process leather resources locally instead of exporting raw leather or semi-finished leather products.
“We will be in a position to finish our leather in terms of processing it into finished leather and then use that leather in the production of finished leather products.
“This has application in almost virtually every aspect of our lives—in footwear, furniture, apparel and also in the automobile industry.
“There is hardly any machine that you will open and you will not find a leather component; so we want to do this because this is the only way we can create more jobs; a lot of wealth; and then, we will be in a position to fight poverty.’’
According to him, Nigeria currently has high comparative advantage in textile and labour as its labour cost was relatively low.
According to him, it is important that the policy is implemented as it will help to create jobs and wealth.
The minister said Nigeria is number three in Africa; and number eight in the world in terms of exporting light leather.
“This is a very vital area because if we harness the livestock that we have in Nigeria and ensure that we process the hides and skin of animals in the country, we will be creating a lot of jobs.
“A very significant number of jobs and wealth will be created because we are going to have small scale industries springing up because the leather value chain in extensive..
“Those who will go to collect the hides and skin; those who will process them; those who will use the processed leather; those who will do them in stages”.
“You can have semi-finished leather; then you can have finished leather; in all these stages, you will now be having new businesses springing up—that is how jobs are created,’’ he said.
Onu noted that as at 2013, leather contributed almost, 921 million dollars to Nigeria’s economy, adding that leather was once the second major source of revenue in the non-oil sector.
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