Local manufacturers and industry players said paper manufacturing and production could become Nigeria’s second oil, given its profitability and global demand.

But they decried the gradual decline of the sector over the last two decades, urging private investment into the sector to revive it.

Speaking during World Envelope Day, Managing Director and Chief Executive of FAE Limited, Layo Bakare-Okeowo, said that with an investment of $5 million, a paper mill capable of producing up to 20 tonnes daily could be established comfortably.

She said a cluster of paper mills would not only meet domestic needs but would also position Nigeria as a major exporter in the global market.

She revealed that a tonne of wood-free paper currently sells for about $1,300 on the international market, whereas local mills remain overstretched, with shipments overbooked due to limited production capacity.

According to her, the few local paper companies in the country cannot meet demand despite their expansion.

“We need significant investment when it comes to paper production. Paper making is a goldmine. A tonne of paper now is about $1,300 and this is what we are missing out on in Nigeria. We don’t need a lot of money to set up a paper mill. With $5 million, you can have a paper mill. Let’s form clusters that can make maybe about 20 tonnes in a day and we start exporting that,” she said.

Speaking on the calls to go paperless in Nigeria from some quarters, she said this is incorrect, as advanced economies such as Europe and America still use paper, with their post offices operating.

“They are using copier paper and envelopes in those places. Our own post offices here in Nigeria are no longer working because of a number of reasons. I’m using this opportunity of World Envelope Day to say that we should make our post offices work. We shouldn’t kill the paper industry. Egypt has about 25 paper mills. What’s the population of Egypt? In Nigeria, we are over 250 million and we have just three semi-paper mills.

“We have Chinese coming in to make papers in Nigeria. Why are they coming in? I heard two more are still trying to come into the sector meanwhile, our own local paper mills have been abandoned”, she decried.

President of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Leye Kupoluyi, described the sector as a mmulti-billion-dollarsector, which needs to be revamped.

“I do not want to say it was far better in the 70s, 80s or in the 90s where we had a lot of paper mills like Ibokun, Jebba and Iwopin, among others, contributing to the economy.

What we need to do now is improve our paper industries with today’s technology because paper will always be very important. We may be in the digital age but for store of value, our textbooks, notebooks, research books and so on are still printed. We cannot keep importing these things and contributing to foreign economies at the detriment of our own,” he said.