Nigeria's BOI Has Disbursed About 60 Percent of The N100 Billion Textile Revival Fund

Nigeria’s Bank of Industry (BOI) has disbursed about 60 percent of the N100 billion Textile Revival Fund, according to the bank’s managing director Evelyn Oputu.
 
Ms. Oputu, who is currently attending the 20th Anniversary and Annual General Meeting of Africa Export-Import Bank in Addis Ababa, said the Textile Revival Fund has started showing results and has generated about 25,000 new jobs.
 
She told reporters that the Revival Fund has also sustained some textile businesses, which would have otherwise been closed by now, vanguardngr.com reported.
 
She said the scope of the Fund has been extended to cover all manufacturing activities, including garments, in addition to cotton production, spinning, processing and printing.
 
Cotton production in Nigeria declined from 98,000 tons in 2006 to 55,000 tons in 2010. Similarly, the capacity utilization in Nigeria’s textile and apparel industry decreased from 50.75 percent in 2003 to 20.14 percent in 2010.
 
Ms. Oputu, however, said that the Nigerian textile industry is bouncing back.
 
In order to boost the country’s textile and apparel sector, the Government of Nigeria has included the sector in its Industrial Revolution Plan and it is also striving to boost cotton production.
 
Earlier in January this year, Nigeria’s Minister of Trade and Investment Mr. Olusegun Aganga said the Government expects the textile and apparel sector to create more than 60,000 new employment opportunities by 2020. For the purpose, efforts are being made to revive the entire textile value chain, he added.
 
The Minister said Nigeria’s textile and clothing sector has a strong potential to grow due to availability of cotton, knowledge of the sector, and the country’s large market-size represented by over 167 million inhabitants, who provide a natural market for textiles and apparels.
 
Moreover, there is also scope to export Nigerian textiles and apparels to other markets, especially to the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), he said.