Nigeria Targets $2.1bn Annual FX Savings, 110,000 Jobs Through New Sugar Self-Sufficiency Plan
Nigeria could save about $2.1 billion annually in foreign exchange and create 110,000 direct and indirect jobs if the country’s revised sugar development programme achieves its self-sufficiency targets.
The Executive Secretary, National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), Kamar Bakrin disclosed this at an interactive session with members of the Commerce and Industry Correspondents Association of Nigeria in Abuja.
He said the council has completed a comprehensive review of the challenges that frustrated previous efforts to develop a viable domestic sugar industry and had developed solutions to address them.
According to him, sugar self-sufficiency goes beyond the industry itself, with significant implications for foreign exchange conservation, employment generation, rural development and environmental sustainability.
The NSDC boss added that the Backward Integration Programme (BIP) is projected to generate about 110,000 direct and indirect jobs while impacting more than one million livelihoods across the sugar value chain.
He expressed confidence that the combination of policy reforms, industry expansion, improved planting materials and stronger institutions would place Nigeria on a sustainable path towards sugar self-sufficiency.
Nigeria currently consumes about 1.8 million metric tonnes of sugar annually, with more than 97 per cent of demand met from imported raw sugar refined locally.
Domestic production last season stood at about 27,000 metric tonnes due to poor economics that favoured imports, weak accountability for investment commitments, limited access to project financing and inadequate agronomic capacity.
