Nigeria recorded a cumulative savings of N5.03 trillion as a result of import reduction in four years,Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, Minister of Science Technology and Innovation,has said.
Onu disclosed this in Abuja at the closing ceremony of Science and Technology EXPO 2022,where he also explained that import reduction was due to the patronage of local products.
The minister who justified the figure with a the data from the National Bureau of Statistics(NBS) and the United Nations Harmonised System Code, said the value of savings from import reduction of N613.6billion in 2017, N412.8 billion in 2018, N2.3trillion in 2019 and N1.71trillion in 2020.
According to him, his ministry contributed immensely to import reduction through its various initiatives designed for economic transformation, job creation and poverty reduction.
Some of the new policies introduced by the ministry since the inception of the present administration include the National Science, Technology and Innovation Roadmap 2017-2030; National Strategy for Competitiveness in Raw Materials and Products Development; Presidential Executive Order No. 5; Methanol Fuel Technology and Leather and Leather Products Policy, among others.
He noted that the implementation of these policies has resulted in moving the economy from depending entirely on commodities to knowledge-based and innovation-driven.
