Though Nigerian garment markets are saturated with Asian items, domestic manufacturers—now trained, informed and having embraced value chain production systems—only need encouragement and funds as mass production needs capital and many are still at the workshop level struggling to meet delivery, said a top Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) official. If domestic manufacturers are well funded for expansion into large factories, backed up with firm-level technical training and government policy support for solely made in Nigeria garments, they can meet domestic needs as it will be more profitable, NEPC chief executive officer Olusegun Awolowo told the information portal of the US African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). NEPC set up the Human Capital Development Centre (HCDC) in Lagos in 2006 with modern industrial machines and engaged both local and international garment experts to train workers for mass production of garments for export to the United States under AGOA. Over 850 people have been trained at the HCDC to date, he said. In addition to the above, the NEPC is currently providing technical support for export-ready garment companies by bringing into Nigeria and paying for the services of international garment experts from Sri Lanka and Ghana. The technical support started with the Calabar Garment Factory in Cross Rivers State where firm-level training was conducted for over 600 factory hands in December 2018, he added.
Source – Fibre2Fashion.
