WITH the dwindling revenue from oil exports and the drive by Federal Government to focus on non-oil commodities’, which include the creative sector in the new year, stakeholders in the garment making industry have been advised to get the sector ready for the export market by coming together to form a formidable sector.

This call was made by the Deputy Director of the Nigerian Exports Promotion Council NEPC), Oluwasegun Faleke, at a recent stakeholders meeting with a group of fashion designers who have been working with the governments’ agency to forge a way forward for the sector in 2016.

The meeting was part of continued efforts to finetune plans for brands to thrive within and outside Nigeria as they export or hopefully begin to export in 2016.

At the crucial meeting with the NEPC boss, which took place at the Protea Hotel in Ikeja, Lagos, Faleke frankly stated that Nigerian designers should be able to speak with one voice. “As stakeholders, we need to come together because it would be more economical to work together as a group and this is when government can make inputs. Designers need to play their own part. This is the time to key into non-oil exports agenda of the government. We need mentoring and also synergy among stakeholders. It is a multi-million Naira sector and everybody needs to be on the same page, come together and form a voice for the industry.”

Some of the designers who have attended the MAGIC trade event, a fashion exhibition regularly organised in Las Vegas, USA, which has been facilitated by the NEPC for the last three consecutive seasons, also shared their experiences at the stakeholders meeting.

The Chief Executive Officer of One-Stop College of Fashion (OSC), a fashion school based in Lagos, Mrs Sola Babatunde, revealed “our products have more value in the international market when they are produced here, but they should be done to standard. We have to be able to mass-produce. Designers and their staff, too, need to be educated about the look-book, line-shift, labels and so on.

The President of the Nigerian Union of Tailors, Wasiu Taiwo, also noted that the country needs to develop its human capacity. “We have what it takes to make the country grow, but we are not doing it. Nigeria has a lot to offer the international market and we need government’s support to be able to achieve this, by helping to develop the human capacity. We need to train all the artisans in modern skills and this can create a multiplier effect that would create more jobs in the sector than the entire civil service could employ.”

Everybody at the meeting equally agreed that capacity building, which involves government’s support, is urgently needed to move the sector forward and take it to the next level.