Not less than $900 million is spent by Nigerians to import ceramic products yearly as the country has very few local production capacity.
This was disclosed by Professor Patrick Oaikhinan, the only professor of Ceramics Engineering and Technology in Nigeria. Oaikhinan, who is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of EPINA Technologies Limited, in a chat with New Telegraph, said while Nigeria imports more of ceremic products worth $900 million every year, it exports a meagre quantity worth less than $80,000.
He stated that the ones produced in Nigeria, which constitute the country’s $80,000 export, are even those produced by foreigners who were doing business in Nigeria.
He noted that the country was spending about $800 million on the importation of ceramic products up till 2010, but the importation had been fluctuating since then. He said, however, it picked up and has risen to about $900 million since 2019, adding that the country spent $365 million on tiles importation alone.
“These are what we can calculate officially. If we add those ones that are smuggled into the country, we will know that the country is losing huge amount of money in foreign exchange.
“Those people who smuggle aren’t taken into consideration, only the records – the paper value – and so it’s definitely more than that because people bring in from Cotonou and Cameroon and these aren’t calculated,” he added.
The ceramics technologist said Nigeria needed to revive its ceramics sector to develop and grow its economy, disclosing that all aspects of development in other sectors revolve round ceramics. According to him, “Nigeria’s economy cannot grow without ceramics. Look at it this way. Talk of any sector, ceramics is present. Be it aviation, automobile, education, health, real estate and even telecommunications.
Even in the medical sector as well. “Ceramics play a key role in every sector in the economy. Being in an hotel here right now, you know that you’ll eat and drink with ceramics and when you want to use the restroom, you won’t wish to leave because of the ceramic sanitary wares (toilets, wash-hand basins, tiles, etc.).
So, without ceramics, the economy can’t move forward. “Unfortunately, we spend not less than $900 million on ceramics importation annually with mainly 61 per cent of that amount coming from India, and the rest from Spain, Austria, Italy and even South Africa.
Hence, ceramics is at the foundation of any economy in the world.” He stated that despite its huge potential, ceramics industry was the most suffered sector in Nigeria, saying government has totally neglected the sector.
According to him, out of 10 ceramics firms operating in Nigeria, eight are completely owned by foreign investors, while the other two are co-owned by Nigerians and foreign partners.
He declared that if well harnessed, the industry could produce five million employment annually. “Take, for example, the ceramic brick industry is capable of giving jobs to bricklayers, carpenters, tile layers, transporters, casual laborers, electricians. Putting all these together, one could have so many direct and indirect employees working for them and, that way jobs are created.
“If we develop the ceramic industry in this country, we can guarantee five million employment opportunities annually, bcause we’re going to have the table-ware, tiles, sanitary-ware , brick, insulator, paving floor, medical, technology, paper and print industries all using the raw materials that ceramists would have processed like processed kaolin, for example, which the print industries use.
“We can have one company producing materials for other industries, thereby creating jobs for so many people. If we can do that… and we haven’t mentioned glass yet or cement. Although I know of two companies doing well in cement production,” he said.
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