The Federal Government has called on potential investors to revive, reform, and transform Calabar and Kano free trade zones (FTZs) into world-class standards to make them functional and globally competitive.
Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo, said this yesterday during a roadshow for the concession of Calabar and Kano FTZs, organised by the National Council of Privatisation (NCP) the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment and the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA).
Adebayo lamented that efforts to replicate the success of the FTZ model in Nigeria have not recorded the same success recorded by other African countries like Ethiopia and Ghana. He said the two FGN-owned special economic zones (SEZs), in their current state, could not significantly improve the country’s competitiveness nor help the drive to effect structural change and economic diversification.
He described poor infrastructure, reliance on treasury to finance capital expenditure, and lack of a link between the industrialization strategy of the government and the zones among others as factors responsible for Nigeria’s failure to meet the needed structural change.
