The National Sugar Development Council (NSDC) has announced that it is projecting a sugar production of about 1 million metric tones in the year 2020.
This projection is in partial fulfillment of the Council’s National sugar Master Plan (NSMP), a ten year plan launched in 2013 which is aimed at reaching 1.8 million metric tones of annual sugar production and putting the country in good position for self sufficiency.
The Executive Secretary of the Council, Dr Latif D. Busari, who briefed journalists on the progress made this year and next year’s projections, said the council is on course to meeting the targets it set for itself for the year 2023.
While admitting that the 1.8 milion metric tones target for 2023 was ambitious, he added that the council will at least be able to reach 1.7 million metric tones.
While acknowledging that the year 2019 had been a good year for the industry and hoping for a bountiful outing in 2020, Dr Busari however told reporters that the sector is not an island on its own and cannot out-perform the local and global economy.
“We are moving closer to the goals we set for ourselves. But we cannot move away from the happenings in the economy. With the United States expanding its trade wars with different countries, we may have a global recession in 2020 and it will affect a lot of things. Even here in Nigeria, the IMF has projected that if oil prices fall below 50 dollars, Nigeria may experience another recession and when the economy is bad, people won’t have money to invest and our sector may suffer like others,” he said.
“So, we are looking at 1 million metric tones next year. We really hope the economy does well and does not go into another recession as this may reverse all the gains we have made in recent years. The recession of 2016 affected a lot of the momentum that we had in 2013 and 2014,” he added.
Dr Busari also enthused that the Council is on course to meeting all the laudable goals of the NSMP by the expiry date of 2023. He however added that there will be another 5-year master plan after that which will last until 2028.
He noted that whatever the Council is not able to accomplish by 2023 will be pursued in the second plan.
It would be recalled that during the midterm review of the NSMP in June 2017, a lot of far-reaching decisions were reached with stakeholders to rejig things and restrategize. One of the decisions, he said, was the establishment of the National Sugar Institute (NSI), which is coming up next year in Ilorin, Kwara state.
He informed journalists that the NSI would take care of research and provide a breeding ground for the huge technical manpower required to move the sector forward.
