Stakeholders in industrial sector have called on the Federal Government to provide infrastructure development in the textile sub-sector of the industry as it is the only way to revitalize the ailing sector.

They noted that for the government to ban issuance of foreign exchange to textile companies is certainly not the right approach, arguing that enough window ought to have been given.

“It is only the masses that will suffer the hike in price, because leaders in power will go ahead and import textile materials in large quantities,” they stated.

The President of Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe said that it is only when the sector is provided with the right infrastructure that the sector would bounce back again.

Gwadabe, who was represented by the Financial Secretary of the Association, Mr. Adewumi Adewale at the inauguration of new Exco of Commerce and Industry Correspondents Association of Nigeria (CICAN), recently in Lagos, noted that government has not put anything in place that will encourage the textile industries that are moribund to take off, saying that this cannot be a sudden affair, as it has to be a gradual issue.

He also said that if the government is serious about reviving the textile industry, it will take those moribund industries three years to come back on the limelight.

But in achieving this, he said there must be massive improvement on power supply because that is the major challenge faced by the manufacturing sector.

In his speech, the Managing Director of NISPO Porcelain Company Limited, Mr. Afam Mallinson Ukatu said  VAT increase from 5 percent to 10 percent  would  affect manufacturing sector and other businesses in the country negatively.

Ukatu noted that if government does not refrain from the proposed, most manufacturers would be forced to shut down their factories here in Nigeria and relocate to other countries where tax  are more friendly.

He recounted that another area the government needed to look into was the issue of multiple taxation, stressing that it is of paramount importance to harmonise taxes.

“The situation has deteriorated to the extent that tax authorities shut down factories, for the inability of tax defaulters to pay. What we do ask them is that if you shut a factory because they have not paid tax, and all their workers are on the street, where are they going to get the money to pay the tax? Again, I will advise that government desist from the proposed increase of VAT,” he stressed.