ABC, Kimberly-Clark seek partnership to expand Nigeria’s manufacturing capacity

L:R: Girish Sharma, chief operating officer, Dufil Prima Foods Plc; Oluwakemi Saliu, marketing manager, Kimberly Clark; Tayo Fagbamigbe, senior legal counsel, Kimberly Clark; Margaret Olele, chief executive officer/executive secretary, American Business Council; Okusanya Adebisi, HR manager, Kimberly Clark West, East & Central Africa; during a media parley with FMCG group in Lagos last Tuesday.

The American Business Council (ABC) and Kimberly-Clark, makers of soft Huggies diapers and Kleenex tissues, are seeking partnership with the Nigerian government with a view to making the country a manufacturing hub.

At a media parley organised by the ABC for the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods Group (FMCG), salient issues and challenges affecting the manufacturing sector were discussed.

“There is an aspiration that we will become a manufacturing hub in West Africa. And one of the ways we are doing this is by working around partnerships and driving social economic reforms with these panthers,” Margret Olele , executive secretary, ABC, said at the media parley, which held in Lagos.

Industry players in the FMCG industry said Nigeria was an attractive platform and destination for manufacturers, and if the challenges and bottlenecks were tackled, the country would become a major hub in West Africa.

They pointed out the need to fix the power sector to reduce high energy costs incurred by local manufacturers.

Apart from power, the group called on the government to put up infrastructure such as good roads and railway system across the country to enable players in the real sector to move around their products.

The players also stressed the need to make the business environment attractive to investors and convivial for manufacturers.

The FMCG contributes about 45 percent to the manufacturing sector. The FMCGs are mostly over-the counter products that are sold quickly. They include noodles, beverages, packaged foods and toiletries, among others.

“Nigeria is very attractive to manufacturers around the world, but the challenges and the bottlenecks are affecting us, especially in terms of profit- making. The government has to do more to ease these challenges and the quicker they do that, the better for us,” said Oluwakemi Saliu, marketing manager, Kimberly-Clark.

“That is why we need increased partnership with the government,” Saliu further said

ABC is an affiliate of U.S chambers of commerce, working with the U.S mission and other partners to drive trade and investments opportunities between Nigeria and America in the interest of its member companies.

“We have about 40 members running across different sub sectors in FMCG, structure, energy and critical sector investments and we have at least 30 percent of our members in the ICT space,” Olele said.

BUNMI BAILEY