‘Prioritise FOREX to manufacturing sector’

The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has called on the federal government to remove the 7.5 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) on Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) otherwise known as diesel pending the normalisation of the international supply system.

The association also called on the government to prioritise allocation of foreign exchange to the manufacturing sector.

The president of the association, Engineer Mansur Ahmed, made the appeal while speaking at the association’s 25th joint Annual General Meeting yesterday in Kaduna.

He opined that, “Government should remove the 7.5% VAT on the AGO pending the normalisation of the international supply system and quickly resolve the complexity surrounding the seamless implementation of the eligibility customer initiative to enable manufacturers to take advantage of the standard electricity.”

The president who was represented by the Chairman, Bompai Kano Branch, Alhaji Sani Saleh, called on government to urgently convene a strategic meeting with key operators in the Nigeria economic space to deliberate and craft a national strategic response to the disruptive impact of the ongoing Russian-Ukraine war on the global supply value chain and its debilitating impact on the economy.

“We believe that this will help to identify viable options to ameliorate the impact of the disruption, agree on ways to assuage other pain points on the business environment, activate innovative solutions to familiar and emerging macroeconomic and infrastructure challenges and generally point the director for resilience in the economic ecosystem.

“The government should prioritise allocation of foreign exchange to the manufacturing sector and that the CBN should direct commercial banks to transparently and diligently process forex applications by manufacturers. It is also important to improve the time taken to clear container/cargo at the ports to reduce the various port charges and remove demurrage for unduly delayed clearance.”