The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has reported sharp decline in automotive, pulp and paper publishing, and other manufacturing sub-sectors’ capacities last year.
Available statistics on the performance of the affected sectors provided by the association showed that food, beverage and tobacco grew by 57.1 per cent; textile, apparel and footwear grew by 60.02 per cent; and wood and wood products by 55.5 per cent.
Other sub-sectors with positive performance indices are, chemical and pharmaceutical which grew by 57.9 per cent; domestic/industrial plastic and rubber which grew by 63 per cent; electrical and electronics which recorded 55.6 per cent growth; with iron, metal and steel growing by 59.2 per cent.
However, the sub-sectors that recorded lower performance in the review period include, the pulp, paper and publishing, which declined by 39.5 per cent; non-metallic products which recorded -45.3 per cent decline in productive capacity and motor vehicle and miscellaneous assembly, which dropped by 48.8 per cent.
Real sector analysts have attributed the drop in the key sub-sectors to sundry factors including, low local content, poor infrastructure and inflation, among others.
Also, they linked the low production in the affected sub-sectors to the decline in the entire real sector’s performance in Q3, 2017 after witnessing a slight recovery in the first quarter of the year.
It would be recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had, in its Manufacturing Sector Report for 2017 indicated that the manufacturing sector grew slightly by 0.14 per cent from -2.85 per cent in Q3 2017 and -2.54 per cent in Q4 2016.
