As Nigeria continue to search for a way out of lingering economic recession, Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed claims the President Mohammadu Buhari led government is looking towards the way of reviving the moribund paper mills in the country.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed who was represented at the 2016 edition of annual Nigeria International Print Expo (NIPEX) in Lagos by the Federal Government Printer Ittu Tommy Ittu added that it was the sincere desire of government to diversify Nigeria’s economy and considers the printing industry as a driver for employment opportunities among Nigerians. “I must admit that the print industry is a larger employer of labour especially at the small scale industry amongst our youth”.
“Tackling the need to have our local source of raw materials internally produced and conserve our foreign exchange, the government is sourcing on the way forward to revive our shutdown paper mills and promote the production of printing inks as well”, he added.
He further added “the paper mills established by government were viable project with large estate of trees as raw materials were hindered by bureaucratic bottle-neck and poor maintenance culture attributing to their closure. Just like any other manufacturing industry, unsteady or total power outage led to losses rather than productive gains”.
Appreciating the team of NIPEX Organizers led by the President/CEO Tunde Obokhai for sustaining quality printing education and helping to expand business relationship among industry stakeholders and practitioners for the years past, the Information Minister call for quality maintenance culture, training and retraining of manpower to meet the modern day printing expectations.
