By Francis Ogwo
The Federal Government has been urged by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) to review the interest rate and waive import duties on active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and food-related raw materials to support the manufacturing sector in its bid to recover from the harsh economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The President of MAN, Mansur Ahmed, stated this while speaking during the association’s 48th Annual General Meeting held in Lagos over the weekend.
Ahmed noted that global and local economies have suffered greatly from the pandemic which has led to an involuntary economic shutdown and a halt in manufacturing activities with a resultant drop in productivity and decline in quality of livelihood.
“Support manufacturing concerns by reviewing the terms of existing loan facilities, especially reducing interest rates to five percent with two years moratorium. Manufacturers that are investing in order to scale production should be granted loans at five percent interest rate for a period of five to seven years,” he said.
Speaking further, Ahmed said regulatory agencies must support the revival of the manufacturing sector through necessary reviews and palliatives, following the impact of the coronavirus on the business environment.
The MAN President further stated that manufacturers were yet to recover from the impact of the pandemic and weeks of the lockdown, stressing that many sub sectors collapsed to the point of almost shutting down.
He urged the government and regulatory agencies to support the sector through the provision of stimulus packages, reversal of the Value Added Tax rate to five percent, review of existing loan facilities, waiver of import duties and demurrages, among other things.
According to Ahmed, the CBN should extend its COVID-19 stimulus packages to manufacturers not covered by existing CBN initiatives and also grant manufacturers increased access to the foreign exchange at pre-COVID-19 rate to support the importation of raw materials, machines, and spares that are not available locally.
Part of the calls made by the President also included calling for the introduction of fiscal measures by waiving import duties on inputs, while exempting manufacturers from demurrages payable between February and July 2020, especially those occasioned by the lockdown directives of government and others associated with the COVID-19 management.
He also stated that regulatory agencies should prioritise the request of manufacturers and also carry out their roles with empathy and while reducing their respective administrative charges by 50 percent.
Ahmed signed off by stating that in order to improve the disposable income of consumers, stimulate consumption, promote an upsurge in demand and increase production output, it was necessary to reverse the VAT back to five percent and also reduce the Personal Income Tax to a flat rate of 10 percent for a year.
Recall that the fortunes of the manufacturing sector had suffered greatly since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic with shutdown of factories and lockdown measures of containment.
