End to smuggling, adulteration will spur Dangote back to Tomato production
The outgoing President of the Nigerian Agribusiness Group (NABG), Alhaji Sani Dangote has made it clear that they will commence production of tomato paste as soon as issues of smuggling of tomato paste and adulteration of the product are addressed by the government”.
Apart from the issues of adulteration and illegal entry, the group also noted that as soon as government puts the right policies on ground which will attract a level playing ground for the business to thrive, many other investors will come on board.
He spoke at the annual general meeting of the NABG, in Abuja yesterday, saying “the recent smuggling and downgrading of tomato paste prices by some countries have discouraged local production of tomato”.
He argued further that “at the moment, we are ready to produce, as you are aware, the vice president was at the farm alongside the minister of industry and the governor of Kano state, he saw farmers planting. He promised that within few weeks, they will come up with the right policies to address the issues and once that is addressed, we will definitely start production.
It would be recalled that pioneer indigenous producer, Erisco Foods recently threatened to quit the country for far away China on grounds of forex scarcity and poor ease of doing business in Nigeria.
