Manufacturing in Nigeria:
Diversification, challenges & opportunities

Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy the continent’s most populous nation and one of the most exciting growth areas in the world, with a market projected to double by 2025 to around one trillion dollars, while the population is projected to rocket to 240 million people by 2050. Manufacturing is helping to drive growth in promising non-oil sectors, but the challenges involved are as complex and grand in scale as the opportunities.

“You need to research to be able to improve on the quality of your product to remain competitive” says Dr. Frank Jacobs is the President of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria in our exclusive interview. Globalization offers both opportunities and risks especially for developing nations. It has lead to an unprecedented increase in international trade in manufactured goods for more than 100 times in the 50 years since 1955, it increases economic prosperity and leads to higher output among others in the participating countries. Globalization today is about moving part of a process to the wherever in the world is best for quality, price or speed and convenience.“ Businesses that used to take 3 weeks to register can now be registered within 48 hours” explains Dr Jacobs.

“My message to the prospective foreign investors is: in this country there are abundant natural resources yet untapped. When, for instance, the EU wanted the EPA agreement, our position was, why not bring these your expensive machines to Nigeria or to ECOWAS, set up your factories here, employ our people, employ some of your people too, but employ our people, produce your products here, ship it to where you want to go sell it. That, if we do it, will be a win win situation.”