Economy: Industrialist canvases patronage of locally produced furniture

By Abbanobi Eku Onyekachi

The Chief Executive Officer of Prince Interior Furnishing and Furniture Company limited, Dr. Emeka Egwuekwe wants Nigerians and governments at all levels to depeen patronage of locally produced furniture, other goods against rising patronage for imported products.

Egwuekwe, who was addressing newsmen on 24th anniversary of his company said patronage of locally produced furniture, cars and other goods would encourage local manufacturers to depeen production and ultimately grow the economy.

He also urged MDAs to stop importing what could be manufactured in Nigeria.

“The solution is not in giving money to the people, because if you give money out without patronising the person.

“it will be in vain. If you can’t sell what you produced, you will not only shut down business, but also you will not be able to pay back the money you were given on loan, you know that when you shut down business, it will affect your workers. ”

He said it was a challenging moment for the Nigerian manufacturers,given the economic situation of the country.

“Nigerians import and use those imported furnitures in their offices, homes, rooms and other places, not only foreign furnitures, but other foreign goods that are produced in other countries , including foreign vehicles.

“But I enjoin them to look into what other nations did and survived and are still doing and surviving.”

Egwuekwe said there was need for Nigeria to seek ideas from countries that had experienced same challenge and were able to overcome the issues.

“In order to build their economy, 20 years ago, China that was passing through what we are passing through now, shut their border and started to use what they were producing.

” What we should do now is to close the border to what we can produce and be using them, instead of importing them.

“This country is blessed by God with manpower, natural resources and we have a population of over 200 million and the timber we have for furniture gives us the best timber you can think of all over the world.

“We can feed ourselves with the food we produce, cloth ourselves with cloths produced in this country, among others.”he said.

According to him, his furniture products could compete favourably with foreign counterparts across the globe,saying that the major challenge to manufacturers is in the area of energy.

“They export our gas to our neighboring countries, making them expensive and unavailable here,so the best thing to do is to close the border to all those things that will affect our economy negatively.”

He said an improved encouragement to manufacturers to produce enough for domestic use would help address the unfavourable balance of trade at the international trade, that has affected the nation’s economy.

He said he was in support of the renewed hope agenda policy of President Bola Tinubu, saying that efforts should be tailored towards addressing the issues.

“We know that things are hard, but I believe that with the policy in place, it will soon be okay.

“Things are really bad, but nothing good comes easy. That is why we should all join hands to support the government.”

He urged the government to also reactivate the moribund manufacturing companies, adding that he was committed to training carpenters that would take over from him because Nigeria was loosing them everyday.

” Most of these young carpenters we trained in this company are leaving this country for Canada and Australia, because those countries they see as where there are greener pastures for them.

” In the next five years, you won’t have carpenters in this country and that is why I am building a vocational institute,”Prince Interior Vocational Training Institute, by Naval Estate in Asokoro, here in Abuja, which will start by February next year.

“This institute has about 99 components, including carpentry, iron – bending, water gas welding, bricklaying, among others, and nobody is asking prince how he is sure that the institute starts immediately.”

He called for encouragement from the government to manufacturers of furniture so they could export locally produced products.