Manufacturers in Nigeria should take advantage of import duty waivers through the Import Duty Exemption Certification.
This charge was given by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr Adeniyi Adebayo, at a national symposium organised by the INGO Third Sector Resource and African Business Roundtable in Abuja.
Adebayo was represented by the Deputy Director of Industrial Development at the ministry, Mr Mohammed Bala.
The symposium was on the implications of import dependence for ARVs/vaccines for HIV, COVID-19 and related health responses and the need to accelerate local production in Nigeria in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.
He said, “The Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investments has developed what we call IDEC, Import Duty Exemption Certificate, to address this manufacturing issue, how we can intervene.
“Those in the pharmaceutical industry should come up to the ministry to see how we can support them. IDEC is in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Finance, where incentives are given to local manufacturers.
“The other one is that we are promoting the BIPC, Backward Integration Programme Certificate, where local industries are certified and can have access to government incentives,” Bala said.
Bala further said that the trade ministry was committed to contributing its quota in ensuring that there is an all-round development of the health industry in Nigeria.
