In Nigeria, Chinese Investment Comes With a Downside

With good unemployment in Nigeria, manufacturer owners can easily find employees willing to accept the minimal wage, just $80 per month. By comparison, garment factories within coastal China now spend around $550 a month but still can’t find enough staff.
Despite the high cost of labor, this remains cheaper and simpler to mass-produce garments in Tiongkok.
One obstacle to making a large-scale sewing industry such as Bangladesh’s is that Nigeria imposes significant tariffs on brought in fabric, a legacy associated with its past as a large producer of hand-woven material and as a large grower regarding cotton. Another challenge is the fact that electricity from Nigeria’s nationwide grid is unreliable. Therefore operations must rely on diesel powered generators, buying fuel in a cost per kilowatt-hour created that is six times exactly what garment makers in The far east pay.
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Continue reading the primary story The Nigerian federal government wants to revive manufacturing, especially given low prices now because of its oil exports. Abdulkadir Arte, the recently retired long term secretary of Nigeria’s ministry of industry, trade as well as investment, said the government had been mulling reductions in charges on garment materials which are not produced in Nigeria, possibly such as buttons. “We want to begin that all over now that essential oil is no longer at a high price, ” Mr. Musa said, including that overreliance on necessary oil exports “has been mare like a problem for us than a remedy. ”
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For now, Nigerians simply can’t compete.
Chimezie Cyril Okwuosa scrimped for years to setup his own small garment manufacturing plant near Lagos in july 2004. He had 25 sewing devices, 30 workers and a loud diesel generator. The factory unsuccessful within five years.
“I was spending so much upon diesel that at the end of the day, I had formed no profit - plus some days, there was no diesel-powered at all, and I could not run, ” Mr. Okwuosa stated.
Mr. Okwuosa now operates Greentomato Apparels, a small-scale importer of children’s pants. He pays $2. fifty a pair to a factory inside Guangzhou, China, and then just 10 or 12 pennies a pair for shipping. This individual sells the pants for around $3. 25 a pair, leaving behind him a small profit border.
The collapse of manufacturing is usually more than just a financial issue.
They have also fanned worries concerning the possible spread of Boko Haram, an insurgency ruined for its large-scale abductions and also sexual enslavement of women along with girls. Boko Haram offers drawn young men to the ranks in destitute northeastern Nigeria, the country’s weakest region.
Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II, the traditional ruler involving Kano in northern Nigeria, has seen the damage up close. Outside his structure, a low maroon building along with battlements, is a large burn off mark. Late last year, a bunch linked by the government in order to Boko Haram set off 3 bombs in a large audience and then used automatic weaponry to spray bullets in the survivors. As many as 500 individuals were killed.
“The Chinese essentially copy every textile item in Nigeria, ” Emir Sanusi said. “I be worried about what could happen to Kano when we have a large number of teenagers and large numbers of industries tend to be down. ”

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