The European Union (EU) on Thursday joined the league of advocates for promotion and consumption of made in Nigeria products and services to grow the economy.
The EU Representative in Nigeria, Nadia Canata, who made the call at the launch of first Nigeria National Quality Award, said Nigeria had a lot of high quality products that should be promoted.
“We need to promote Nigerian products internally and regionally and beyond; Nigeria has a lot of goods that are of high quality and we need to promote them.
“However, we also need to promote a healthy competition as well.
“Because we believe that in promoting quality, nationally and regionally, will help the manufacturers to be more competitive and give out the best that they can,” she said.
Canata said EU was ready to partner with Nigeria to achieve its goal in this regard and in ensuring quality of products that is internationally accepted.
She said that the union in partnership with UNIDO had invested over 40 million Euros in the past 15 years in infrastructure development in the West African region.
The official said that the body would continue to partner with Nigeria and the region as it had in its programme which runs till 2021.
She stressed the need for stakeholders to work together to create awareness on enhancement of quality of products for the satisfaction of consumers.
She said that there was also need to enhance quality of products in Nigeria to be of international standards as it has direct impact on the region.
“This is very important because to have it at the national is not enough.
“We need to link the quality we have in Nigeria with overall regional integration and have quality products that will be safe for the region and the world at large.
“The region boosts its stability by quality, safety and environmental standards because this is what is demanded by the market,” she said.
She said that issue of safety of consumers was paramount and must be taken note of in the quest for quality.
According to her, there is need to understand consumers’ attitude and ensure quality of what they buy.
“And to make it very easy there is need for awareness creation, we need to reassure customers’ confidence in the products they buy.
“There is also need to foster the culture of quality and enhance capacity building to ensure quality,” she said. (NAN)