The Minister of Trade and Investment, Doris Uzoka-Anite said the government was ready to eliminate policy bottlenecks affecting the sector while improving the capacity of local producers of syringes, needles and other medical equipment in the country.
The Minister gave the assurance alongside the Minister of State for Health, Tunji Alausa during a meeting with members of the Medical Device Manufacturers Association of Nigeria Tuesday in Abuja noting that the federal government has initiated a process to improve the local production of syringes, needles and other medical equipment in the country.
This he explained would help to fill in the gap created by the exodus of foreign manufacturing companies exiting the country due to unfavorable business environment.
The policy is coming months after a British pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria, Sanofi and other health companies ended their operations in the country, citing foreign exchange unavailability.
According to her, President Bola Tinubu will soon unveil an Executive Order seeking to protect medical equipment manufacturing companies operating in the country and remove all bottlenecks impeding the growth of the sector immediately, so that Nigerians can access these medicines for less money and of a higher quality.
The minister also stated that a backward integration programme with enticing incentives will be explored to stop the exit of foreign manufacturing companies.
She said, “The mandate that we’ve been given by the president is to fix every problem in Nigeria, especially problems that affect the manufacturers in all sectors of the economy. And at the last FEC meeting, we took the healthcare sector specifically to understand the challenges. And the mandate given to us is to fix it as quickly as possible. The president wants to ensure that the prices of manufactured equipment drop and citizens have greater access to these medicines at affordable rates but high quality.
On his part, the Minister of State for Health, Tunji Alausa, explained that the government aims to change the narrative from the importation of syringes to local production.
He noted, “Over the past several years, we have had a strong importation of needles and syringes to Nigeria while our local manufacturing companies suffer.
