Over 103 Nigerian Export Products Rejected Globally - Aganga

 Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga

Yemi Akinsuyi in Abuja

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga Thursday said over 103 Nigerian export products have been rejected at the global market in the last five years for not meeting acceptable international quality standards.

Aganga, who revealed this in his keynote address during the unveiling of the new office complex of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria(SON) in Abuja, attributed the volume of the rejections to lack of accredited laboratories in the country where the products could be tested before being shipped abroad.

He, however, said Nigeria now has an internationally accredited laboratory in Lagos which would help to check the drift.

According to him, since the laboratory meets international best practice, any product tested there would be acceptable anywhere outside the country, thereby saving the millions of dollars being lost by the manufacturers and the country wherever there is product rejection.

He said: "We all say we want to diversify the economy with a view to increasing our income from non-oil products. But there is no way we can achieve this without having quality infrastructure such as the laboratory.

"For instance, we could not export yam to the UK because we do not have a laboratory to test it here.

"Those who export products in Nigeria take them to Ghana to test them and the credit goes to Ghana. In the last five years Nigeria has more than 103 rejects. If you compare that to other African countries like South Africa and Ghana, who only have between six and seven rejects, our is unacceptable.  We are having this rejects because we did not have accredited laboratory in the country.

"However, we can confidently say we have addressed that challenge now. About two days ago,  I commissioned a new internationally accredited laboratory in Lagos. It is first time ever that we will be having such an accredited laboratory with such scope, twelve scopes."