ABUJA: Nigeria will increase custom duties for tomato imports and waive tariffs for some farming equipment to stimulate local production and investment in the agriculture sector, its trade minister said on Wednesday. “We are going to go up. We will be announcing what the new tariffs are but clearly there is a new set of tariffs,” Okechukwu Enelamah told reporters, without giving details.
Customs duties on some greenhouse equipment currently amounting to as much as 20 percent would be removed. “We are going to restrict imports of finished tomato products that can be produced locally,” the minister said. Nigeria has been trying to encourage local food production in order to reduce a costly import bill and end its reliance on oil exports. But an artificially high exchange rate has dried up the supply of hard currency, forcing the temporary shutdown of two local tomato paste plants dependent on imports in recent months.
