Tomato Union of Nigeria (TUN) has suggested alternatives to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy that restricted 41 item from access to foreign exchange. Spokesman for the union Mr. Nnamdi Nnodebe, Managing Director, Sonia Foods Industries Limited and stakeholder in the production of tomato paste variants, said “the foreign exchange policy continues to encourage smuggling of inferior tomato paste brands through the borders. The only way to save the industry is for CBN to either remove tomato paste triple concentrate from the FX policy restrictions or provide the raw materials in question to the industry.”
He further said “if the local producers of tomato paste get the raw materials directly from CBN this would save the industry from collapse and also help the government avoid more job loss.
“It is no more profitable to produce locally hence the closures. How do you expect producers of tomato paste in Nigeria to compete with their foreign counterparts that have uninterrupted power supply, good roads and distribution network, subsidised loans from their governments. The major raw material used by the local brands, triple concentrate, has been taken away through this Forex policy”.
Tomato Paste Triple Concentrate is a crucial ingredient used to process Consumer products such as packs of tomato paste, ketchup, sauces etc.
Nigerian homes make use of tomato paste to cook numerous delicacies such as jollof rice, rice and stew, yam and stew, egusi soup and many others.
Nnodebe said: “Christmas and New Year celebrations were dry and if you can remember, we predicted this because you cannot talk about the Christmas or New Year rice and stew without talking about tomato both fresh and paste, as most people use both to bring out the best in their cooking. So many people couldn’t afford tomato products during the festive season and if the FX policy is not lifted Easter celebrations will be the same.”
The value of imported tomato paste in Nigeria used to be about 170 million USD (before the CBN ban on 41 items). The imported triple concentrate tomato paste used as raw material by the packers used to be around 50 million USD out of the 170 Million USD (2014).
