By Myke Uzendu, Abuja
Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has disclosed that one of his critical areas of interest will be to revive the comatose manufacturing sector through a review of import duty payable on raw materials and imported machinery for local production.
The Waziri Adamwa added that he would also ensure that raw materials available in the country are sourced while ensuring that ease of doing business in the country is enhanced.
Atiku who made the disclosure in his official tweeter handle @Atiku on Thursday, said that the growth of the manufacturing sector is very critical for the revamping of the economy.
His tweeted: “To jump-start the manufacturing sector and create much needed jobs, and a profitable Nigeria that works for all, we shall review import duty payable on raw materials that are available locally and on imported machinery for local production.
“Ease of doing business is critical to the growth of our manufacturing sector. I will work with the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Chambers of Commerce and other relevant stakeholders to identify ways of reducing the cost of borrowing, tackle incidences of multiple taxation and improve the availability of foreign exchanges for legitimate production input purchases”.
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently published that Nigeria’s inflation rate increased to 17.71 per cent on a year-on-year basis in May according to NBS Consumer Price Index(CPI) and Inflation Report May 2022 released in Abuja on Wednesday.
The CPI measures the average change over time in the prices of goods and services consumed by people for day-to-day living, that is the inflation rate.
The report says the figure” is 0.22 per cent points lower, compared to the rate recorded in May 2021, which is 17.93 per cent”.
“This means that the headline inflation rate slowed down in May 2022 when compared to the same month in the previous year.
“Increases were recorded in all Classification of Individual Consumption by Purpose (COICOP) divisions that yielded the Headline index.”
The report said on a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate increased to 1.78 per cent in May 2022, this is also 0.02 per cent higher than the rate recorded in April 2022 at 1.76 per cent.
“The percentage change in the average composite CPI for the 12 months period ending May 2022 over the average of the CPI for the previous 12 months period is 16.45 per cent.”
“This shows a 0.95 per cent increase compared to the 15.50 per cent recorded in May 2021”.
Nigeria total public debt rose by 20.2 percent to N39.56 trillion ($95.77 billion) as at December 31, 2021, up from N32.92 trillion ($86.392 billion) in 2020, the Director-General (D-G) of the Debt Management Office (DMO), Ms. Patience Oniha, has stated.
