The Director-General of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Muda Yussuf, yesterday cautioned the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), to suspend its proposal to exclude the dairy industry investors from the foreign exchange market.
He counseled that the development was necessary in order to save the economy of the consequential shocks, business disruptions, investment dislocations and job losses.
Yussuf, who commended the apex bank for its commitment to the backward integration agenda of the Federal Government, said the Nigerian economy is not un ripe for the policy to exclude dairy investors from forex..
He added that for all practical purposes, it tantamount to a ban on importation of milk in whatever form as most banks would not process Form M for any product on the CBN forex exclusion list.
He argued that the forex exclusion policy being contemplated by the CBN will create a crisis of immense proportions in the dairy industry supply chain and put investments worth billions of dollars at risk, stressing that the entire food and beverage sector would be adversely affected as many are dependent on the use of milk as intermediate products.
According to him, the policy will boost smuggling, create scarcity and put the prices of the products beyond the reach of the average Nigerian as well as cause loss of revenue to the government.
He specifically said: ’’We currently do not have dairy cows in the country. The dominant milk producing system in Nigeria is the Fulani Nomadic System whose cows have a milk yield of less than two litres a day. Whereas a good dairy cow will produce an average of 28 litres of milk per day over ten months. During peak lactation, a high yielding dairy cow can produce as high as 60 litres of milk per day.
T
he reality is that Nigerian cows have very low yield because of poor genetic composition, poor feeding practices and the laborious nomadic system of breeding.
“These are fundamental issues that we need to fix before contemplating any form of import restriction. These are challenges to be posed to the Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Water Resources at the federal and state levels as the present administration moves to the next level. These are the agencies of government that have primary responsibilities for such matters. The environment needs to be created for these investments to happen”
The post Don’t Exclude Dairy Investors From Forex Market, LCCI Cautions CBN appeared first on Independent Newspapers Nigeria.
Source: Independent
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