Nigeria Central Bank Will Blacklist Bank Accounts Involving Textile Smuggling

In today's May 7th article, GodwinEmefiele, governor of Nigeria's central bank, said that apexbank is collecting data to investigate bank accounts of individuals, companies and institutions involved in textile smuggling. Emefiele warned that after the investigation, individuals, companies and institutions will be exposed and the relevant accounts will be blacklisted.

Emefiele said that during the farming season in 2019, Kaduna distributed cotton seeds to more than 100 thousand farmers in order to restore cotton production and textile and garment industries in Nigeria. By 2020, the output of cotton in Nigeria increased by 300 thousand tons from 80 thousand tons in 2018. At present, the output of cotton in Nigeria is less than 1 tons per hectare, and Nigeria plans to improve its production by seed and technology, so that the output per hectare will reach 4 tons.

At present, Nigeria spends 4 billion US dollars on textiles and garments every year. Nigeria has more than 1 billion 900 million people. The demand for clothing market is diverse and the demand is huge. The domestic textile industry has broad prospects for development.

In the 70-80 century of twentieth Century, Nigeria had Africa's largest textile industry, with more than 180 textile factories employing over 450 thousand workers, accounting for about 25% of the manufacturing workforce. At that time, there were 30 states in Nigeria, 600 thousand farmers planted cotton, and a large number of clothing traders were derived. However, affected by such factors as poor seed quality, high energy cost, lack of funds and rampant smuggling, Nigeria has only 25 textile factories left at present, employing less than 20 thousand workers. Most textiles now rely on imports from China and Europe.

At present, the Central Bank of Nigeria is shifting its focus to agriculture and manufacturing. The two industries account for 52% of Nigeria's GDP.