尼日利亚复兴纺织业

在过去的30年里，尼日利亚纺织服装业遭遇了该国所有行业中最严重的下滑。具有讽刺意味的是，伴随这一状况的，是人口的剧增和人们对该行业产品不断攀升的需求和消费量。

攀升的需求与纺织业的衰退
尼日利亚拥有多达180家纺织厂，是非洲纺织品生产和出口量最大的国家，而如今，纺织行业的急剧衰退，致使其竟无法满足当地15％的纺织品需求。对于经济观察者和纺织业从业人员而言，这令人十分担心和忧虑。

纺织业繁荣时，曾是比联邦政府更大的劳动力雇主，其雇佣的直接劳动力大约为55万人，间接劳动力是这个数字的两倍多。但由于政府抑制特别是电力短缺和业务成本高昂等因素造成行业衰退之后，该行业甚至无法雇佣3万名工人，而且对国民生产总值贡献微乎其微，再也不像曾雇佣至少25％尼日利亚制造业劳动力的繁荣时期。而那一时期，生产棉花的农业附属产业也处于好光景。

据记载，尼日利亚北部各州自然种植的棉花是继棕榈油、可可、花生后独立种植的第四大经济作物。由于纺织工厂不断关闭，一些人搬迁到周边国家。同时，由于不再使用他们的棉花，种植棉花的棉农越来越少。尼日利亚36个州中有26个州自然生长棉花，西非地区还是世界第五大棉花生长区。因此，过去尼日利亚少数民族拥有当地独特的纺织品生产和与之相关的特殊面料。

然而不幸的是，当地纺织产品产量下降之时，也是尼日利亚消费者对本国工厂迄今为止生产的当地面料消费达到顶峰之时。这意味着，尼日利亚开始从加纳、科特迪瓦、塞内加尔等国家进口过去国内自产的产品。在尼日利亚的街头，特别是周末，大家参加各类社交活动时，准确地说，60％的尼日利亚人穿着典型的西非面料，称为安卡拉。它有许多高品位的样式、质量和设计款式，人们都能够买得起，但却无法从当地的工厂购买。对面料的这种更高的需求迫使在亚洲开发新的市场可能性，特别是在泰国、孟加拉国、中国和印度，这些国家的面料主导了尼日利亚市场。

多种措施以促进生产
两个月前，尼日利亚中央银行行长戈德温·埃菲菲乐召集了纺织品制造商开会，讨论振兴行业的方式，让他震惊的是，只有27家公司参加了会议，而这些竟是全部还在运营的企业。今年七月的最后一周，纺织行业的工人协会大会召开，穆罕默杜·布哈里总统亲自主持，会上，工人们敞开心扉，坦言纺织行业的严重衰退和重振该行业的充分必要性。工会领导人伊萨·阿勒穆同志甚至呼吁总统指定成立纺织服装部，以确保该行业全面、快速和大规模的复兴。他告诉总统，该行业是一个劳动密集型产业，过去，曾在解决尼日利亚失业危机方面发挥了重要作用。阿勒穆还说，如果得到适当的恢复和使用，纺织工业可以提升尼日利亚25％的国内生产总值，提供超过400万个工作岗位。

此前，尼日利亚央行宣布采取干预措施，帮助纺织业恢复全面运作。这些措施包括促进生产，以及对棉花生产具有比较优势的州进行激励和扩大生产。目标是将产量从2018年的8万吨提高到2020年的30万吨，并大幅削减过去五年来持续的年均12.3亿奈拉（1美元≈355奈拉）纺织品进口支出。该银行还向10万名农民分发了高产棉花种，使他们能够种植约20万英亩的农场，其产量将在未来两年内翻两番。

为实现这些目标，尼日利亚央行成立了一个部际和政府间委员会，由农业部、工业和投资部、尼央行和5个主要棉花生产国政府组成。央行的举动，以及总统与协会工人的会议得到了尼日利亚媒体的广泛报道及民众的好评，因为他们深知纺织业的衰退给这个国家带来的损失有多么巨大。

打击走私 促进国际合作
尼日利亚主流媒体对此给予重点关注，强调有必要让纺织业重回正轨，以实现经济总体利益。阿勒穆建议：“财政当局应努力并赞扬央行在货币和发展融资方面所采取的激励措施。”目前存在的主要问题是纺织品的走私和伪造。尼日利亚海关总署在打击走私方面取得了一些成就，但未来的道路依旧漫长。尼日利亚海关总署应该提出新的创造性措施，必须包括对卡诺、拉各斯、卡杜纳和联邦其他城市的走私者仓库进行连续打击。尼央行已经成功地截断了一些破坏尼日利亚纺织业走私分子的账户。他请求总统授权海关，确保尼日利亚制造商协会能够与执法机构合作扣押进口纺织品，以保护当地企业。另有媒体报道说：“根据政府的经济复苏和增长计划，该国希望到2019年吸引19亿美元的投资，并相信它可以获得现在流入进口市场的32亿奈拉或1130万美元的年度价值。”然而可悲的是，尽管在过去九年中禁止纺织品进口，但到目前为止，尼日利亚85％的进口纺织品是通过走私和非法贸易进行的。在最近的会议上，尼央行下令整体限制和拒绝外汇进口纺织品，同时收紧边境，以阻止和大幅减少走私。2010年的禁令是在政府创建1000亿奈拉或3.534亿美元的纺织基金一年后颁布的，该基金以6％的利率向外国或本地投资者提供融资。

有了这些措施，本地和外国投资者的投资将毫无障碍。尼日利亚的独特优势在于，各个阶层对大型市场和纺织品市场都有巨大的需求。尼日利亚大约有1.9亿消费者，人们习惯穿着华丽，特别是在尼日利亚北部，由于天气原因，人们喜欢穿着厚重的服饰，纺织品市场是一个等待挖掘的富矿。

政府的激励措施还包括鼓励本地和外国投资，以及进一步降低电力成本，让该行业用得起电，尼日利亚的纺织品消费量在一年内超过4万亿奈拉，是一个巨大的纺织品市场。

在西非经共体地区，15个成员国之间经营共同市场，货物自由流通，没有海关限制，尼日利亚生产的纺织品和织物可以供应给整个西非地区。这意味着可以为西非国家经济共同体至少3.7亿消费者提供市场。尼日利亚政府和机构的此举也对非洲大陆自由贸易协定的生效产生了更大的积极影响，该协定促进了整个非洲大陆的货物自由流动。

中国作为一个对境外投资有着浓厚兴趣的国家，在尼日利亚纺织业有着巨大的机会，这对域外投资者和东道国将会是双赢之举。

自2018年4月以来，尼日利亚与中国之间现行的货币互换协议是另一利好消息，该协议意味着，中国在尼日利亚纺织业的投资者可以直接使用人民币结算，8％的尼日利亚的外汇储备以人民币计价。

英文版

Nigiria Revitalizes Its Textile and Apparel Industry

By Ikenna Emewu  For China Investment  Editor-in-Chief of the AFRI-CHINA MEDIA CENTRE Nigeria

In the past 30 years, the Nigerian textile and garments industry has witnessed what could be the worst decline in any industry in the country.
Ironically, this comes with higher demand and consumption for the product of this sector in a growing population.
The country that had 180 textile factories and the largest volume of textile production and export in Africa has declined so drastically that it can’t produce up to 15 percent of her textile needs locally.
This has been a major cause of concern and worry to watchers of the economy and players in the sector.
During those boom days, the sector was a bigger employer of labour than the federal government with a direct workforce of some 550,000 and more than twice this figure at the indirect stratum. But after the terrible slump occasioned by some local factors, including the disincentives from the government, especially poor electricity and cost of doing business, the sector can’t boast of employing up to 30,000 workers today and contributing so little to the annual GDP unlike the boom days when the textile industry employed at least 25 percent of Nigerian manufacturing sector workforce.
When the boom was on, the affiliated industry of agriculture that produced cotton was also in good season.
For the records, cotton grown naturally in the northern states of Nigeria was the fourth largest cash crop of the nation at independence after palm produce, cocoa, groundnuts. As the textile factories shut down and some relocated to neighbouring countries, the cotton farmers also thinned out as production crashed due to the non-use of their products. Cotton naturally grows in 26 of the 36 states of Nigeria and the West Africa region is the world’s 5th largest cotton bay. Therefore, from the past Nigerian ethnic nationalities had local textile production and peculiar fabrics associated with them and quite peculiar to them.
Unfortunately, when the local production declined was when Nigerian consumers’ taste for the local fabrics hitherto manufactured in the Nigerian mills peaked.
The implication is that Nigeria rather started importing the equivalent of what it used make from countries like Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal etc. On the streets of Nigeria, especially during weekends when most social events hold, it’s accurate to say that 60 percent of Nigerians attending such events are dressed in the typical West African kind of fabrics called ankara. It comes in so many tasteful variants, qualities and designs that all classes of the market afford, but cannot find to buy from the local mills.
This higher appetite for the fabrics forced the creation of new market possibilities in Asia, especially in Thailand, Bangladesh, China and India whose fabrics dominate the Nigerian market.
Two months ago, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele said he was shocked to find that the meeting of textile manufacturers he called to discuss ways of reviving the industry was attended by just 27 companies, the only ones still operating.
At the last week of July this year, the workers’ union of the sector was hosted by President Muhammadu Buhari during which they bared their minds to him on the serious slump and the need for revival of the sector. Comrade Issa Aremu the leader of union even made a call to the president to create a designated ministry for textile and garments as a means of ensuring its full, fast and whole scale revival. He informed the president of the capability of the sector to play a major role in crashing the unemployment crisis in Nigeria as a labour intensive sector that played such key role in the country in the past. Aremu also reminded that if properly harnessed and revived, the textile industry can power at least 25 percent of the nation’s GDP and provide more than four million jobs.
In an earlier move, the CBN announced intervention measures to bring back the textile industry into full operation. This included incentives for production and the expansion and boost of local cotton production in the states with comparative advantage. The target is to raise the production volume from 80,000 tonnes in 2018 to 300,000 tonnes in 2020 and cut down drastically the annual average expenditure of N1.23tr textile import that has persisted in the past five years.
The bank also distributed high yield species of cotton to 100,000 farmers to enable them cultivate some 200,000 acres of farm whose yield would quadruple the current volume in the next two years.
To actualize the targets, CBN set up an inter-ministerial and inter government committee for the implementation comprising the agric ministry, industry and investment ministry, the CBN and governments of some five key cotton producer states.
The CBN moves and the parley of the president with the labour unionists were so much celebrated in the Nigerian media knowing how bad the downturn of the sector has been and the pains of the loss of the glory days.
All major news media in Nigeria gave the reports copious attention and underlined the need to put the textile industry back on track for the general good of the economy.
Aremu suggested that that the “fiscal authorities must try and compliment the commendable efforts of the CBN monetary and development financing measures. The major problems are smuggling and counterfeiting of textile products. The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, has recorded some achievements in combating smuggling. But more should be done. NCS should come out with new creative measures that must include consistent raids of the warehouses of smugglers in Kano, Lagos, Kaduna and other cities of the federation. CBN has commendably blocked the accounts of some smugglers sabotaging Nigeria’s economy in the textile.’
He asked the president for powers for the customs to enforce that the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria works with the enforcement bodies to ensure seizure of imported textile to help protect the local players.
Another medium reported that; ‘under the government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan,
“The country is hoping to attract $1.9bn in investment by 2019, and believes it could capture the N3.2 billion or $11.3m in annual value that now goes to import markets.’
Woefully, although the ban on textile import has been on in the past nine years, up till now, 85 percent of the textile imports into Nigeria are through smuggling and illegal trading. At the recent meeting, the CBN ordered almost total restriction and denial of foreign exchange for textile imports and the tightening of borders to discourage and drastically reduce smuggling.
The 2010 ban came just a year after the government had created a N100b or $353.4m textile fund that made financing available at six per cent interest rate to investors in the sector whether foreign or local.
With these measures in place hopefully, the coast becomes clearer for investment in the sector for local and foreign investors. One unique thing about Nigeria is the large market and the textile market or consumers cut across all classes. With about 190m consumers in a country people dress lavishly, especially the northern part of the country where the people are clad in surplus fabrics due to their weather the textile market is a goldmine waiting to be tapped.
The government incentives also include encouraging local and foreign investments and the further push to make power more affordable for the industry to run, Nigeria with textile consumption volume in excess of N4tr in a year is a viable textile market for the grab.
With these possibilities in an ECOWAS region that has operated a common market with free flow of goods among the 15 member countries without customs restriction, producing textile and fabrics in Nigeria is as good as producing for the entire West Africa. That entails an available market for at least 370m consumers in the ECOWAS market.
This move by the Nigerian government and agencies also has larger positive implications with the coming into force of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement that facilitates free movement of goods all through the continent.
China as a country with deep appetite for outbound foreign investment has a great window of opportunities in the Nigerian textile industry with benefits to the foreign investors and the host country Nigeria.
The existence of the current swap deal between Nigeria and China since April 2018 is further good news that any Chinese investors in the sector in Nigeria don’t go through a long process of procuring forex or conducting business with Nigerian central bank already doing business in the Chinese yuan and some 8 percent of Nigerian foreign reserve domiciled in the yuan.