Nigeria will ban, by 2015, the importation of rice, sugar, fertilizer and other items that can be produced locally, as part of efforts to create jobs and stimulate the country’s economy, according to President Goodluck Jonathan.
The President spoke in Lagos Monday night during a meeting with the Nigerian business community.
”My belief is that by 2015, Nigeria has no business importing rice or fertilizer, and we also need to encourage the local production of sugar such that its importation will be a thing of the past,” he said.
”To create jobs, government will strongly discourage the importation of goods being locally produced or capable of being produced in the country,” President Jonathan said.
The President also disclosed that he would personally chair his National Economic Team, a think-tank aimed at propelling government’s economic and development policy, and promised that the new dispensation would reposition Nigeria’s economy in the next decade
