The Cross River and Akwa Ibom Chapter of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has blamed the low patronage of Nigerian manufactured goods on poor finishing and packaging.

The Chairman of the chapter, Elder Iniobong Jackson, said this in an interactive session with newsmen in Calabar.

Jackson said that good finishing and packaging of products were the ecipe for acceptability and high demand. He, therefore, urged Nigerian manufacturers to improve on their work on their finishing and packaging to attract demand for their products.

“How you package your product determines its acceptability and the demand you get from it. If we must compete with our foreign counterparts we have to update our technology and produce up to internationally  acceptable standards.

The high demand for foreign goods which are adjudged as being cheap and of high standard is because of the level of incentives provided to them by their governments” Jackson said.

He, however, expressed optimism that Nigerian manufacturers could compete with their foreign counterparts, if adequate incentives were made available to them.“ Government patronage is also needed and of course government is trying to encourage made in Nigeria goods.

It should be a matter of policy that government offices and establishments do not buy foreign goods when such goods can be sourced locally. They should rather emphasise on standards. This means that the manufacturers have to learn new skills on how to package their products and get the right finishing to be competitive. Most of our manufacturers cannot afford all the right tools. Government has to provide adequate incentives to make us competitive,” he said.

Jackson underscored the importance of power to the optimum performance of the industrial sector and urged the Federal Government to urgently address the challenges to enable it to thrive.

According to him, technical education should be encouraged to enable the country to have a functional and viable industrial sector.

The chairman also called for a deliberate policy that would provide polytechnics and other technical institutions with the kind of infrastructure that would release their graduates who would be able to sustain the industries. This is because one of the biggest problems we have is lack of technically skilled people to maintain machines instead of over-dependence on expatriates,’’ Jackson said.