NACETEM claims Nigeria leather industry can generate over $1b by 2025

The National Centre for Technology Management (NACETEM) said there is huge potential in the Nigerian leather industry and can generate over $1 billion by 2025.

This was disclosed in Lagos on Wednesday, at the NACETEM Research Output Conference 2024.The South West Zonal Coordinator, NACETEM, Mrs. Maryanne Onyejekwe, who disclosed this, said the country is the highest producer of leather and finished leather products in Africa.

With the conference theme as ‘Leather Sector Assessment and Local Content Policy Studies,’ Onyejekwe said Nigeria remained the largest producer of leather in Africa with its leather ranking among the highest quality leather found globally.

She said that it generates about $600 million to $800 million yearly; hence, this subsector could be a key driver of Nigeria’s economic growth and development.

According to her, the development and utilisation of local content in all sectors of the nation’s economy will not only increase geometrical employment ratio.
Onyejekwe, who is also a director, said the sub-sector could stimulate value creation and additions and also improve the per capita income of the critical mass of its labour force.

“Also, the leather processing and fabricating industry align perfectly with these national goals by actively contributing to the country’s industrialisation efforts. To unlock its growth potential and overcome challenges, the leather processing and leather fabricating industry in Nigeria can explore international collaboration and investment opportunities.

“Technology transfer, collaborating with international partners can facilitate the transfer of advanced tanning technologies and best practices. “International collaboration can help leather processing firms gain access to the global market, partnerships with foreign distributors and retailers can open doors to new customer base,’’ she said.

According to her, it is in this light that the Federal Government passed into law the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) and by extension and most germane to the discourse the Presidential Executive Order 5 to develop, promote and enforce local content and Made-in-Nigeria goods and services.

She said that local content development is critical to the economic growth and development of the nation, more aptly so in the face of dwindling economic fortunes and increasing unemployment.

The director said that Nigeria has been committed to industrialisation efforts and reducing its dependence on Oil. Onyejekwe said that local content in terms of manpower, raw materials, technologies and machinery for Made-in-Nigeria Goods and Services (MNGS) offered the required trajectory to becoming an industrialised nation.

“Hence having a major shift from consumption to production, thereby increasing import substitution and high GDP, entrenching economic diversification, and impacting foreign exchange,” she stated.

In her research presentation, Asst. Chief Research Officer, Mrs. Olayemi Dickson, NACETEM said that Nigerian leather ranks amongst the highest quality globally and is highly demanded in Italy, Spain, India, and China among others. Dickson said that the leather exporting companies in Nigeria generate over 8000 jobs with an export value of about $272 million in 2022.

According to her, to meet international and local demands, the leather firms in Nigeria require a high level of technology capability. She said that the technological capability includes firm-level technological capability and national-level technological capability.