The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday expressed concern on whooping N11.7 billion spent on processed tomato paste on a yearly basis and canvassed urgent reversal of the ugly trend in the overall interest of the domestic economy.
Expressing the apex bank's worries over the unbridled importation of the commodity, amongst other items, the Governor, Mallam Lamido Sanusi stressed that such a huge sum of money could better be invested to grow the commodity locally.
Sanusi, who made the observation in his welcome address at a one day stakeholders Forum on,''Partnering to build a competitive Tomato Industry in Nigeria'', in Abuja said that the simple reason for this situation was largely due to the dys-functional agricultural value chain system in the country.
He pointed out this resulted in about 50 percent of the tomato produced in the country being lost to lack of preservation, poor marketing distribution and access to markets.
Represented by the Deputy- Governor, Economic Policy of the Bank, Dr. Sarah Alade, Sanusi said globally Nigeria remained the 14th largest producer of tomatoes and second only to Egypt in Africa at 1.51 million metric tonnes valued N87.0 billion with a cultivated area of 254,430 hectares.
He said: "It is worrisome that as at today, Nigeria imports 65,809 tons of processed tomato paste valued at N11.7 billion annually.
"It is on this premise that the CBN intervened with programmes such as the N200 billion Commercial Agricultural Lending –NIRSAL, to support the Federal government of Nigeria's Agricultural transformation Agenda–ATA", he added.
According to him, the initiatives are being implemented to improve access to finance by the agri-business at single digit interest rate and as part of commitment towards revolutionalizing the sector.
He explained that the N200 billion Commercial Agricultural Credit Scheme has disbursed a total sum of N199.25 billion to 270 projects since inception, including 30 State Government projects ,the SME Restructuring and Refinancing Fund–SMERRF disbursed, N235.00 billion to 535 projects also.
On what he thinks is the way forward to save the huge foreign exchange losses on tomato imports, Sanusi said in building a competitive tomato industry in Nigeria, developing successful and effective partnership among stakeholders has now become very essential.
He stressed that the forum was therefore organised to focus on strengthening Nigeria's tomato industry through partnership even as he charged the forum to forge effective partnerships to address the constraints militating against Nigeria's full exploitation of the gains of the tomato industry.
National Mirror