In it’s bid to diversity the Nigerian economy from over dependence on crude oil, the Federal Government is made a lot of profitable efforts to revive the Rubber industry, The Minister of State, Science, Technology and Innovation, Barrister Abdullahi Mohammed, has said.

The Minister gave the indication in a keynote address in Abuja at the National Conference For The Industrialization of Rubber Sector, on Thursday.

In the keynote address titled; ”Raw Materials Development; The Economic Imperative of Rubber Value Chain Development in Nigeria”, Barrister Abdullahi said the need to diversify the economy from over dependency on petroleum, a lot of efforts, have been made by government over the past decades to revamp the production of natural rubber and the sector at large.

He added that more needs to be done to ensure sustainable development and industrialization of the sector, such as the need for collaboration between government and the organized private sector to develop the industry.

He said this can be done by setting up small and medium scale factories that will produce rubber into value added products.

The Minister called on Rubber exporting countries like Nigeria to factor in the execution of aggressive programs which combine production levels and required technology input for the sustainable development and industrialization of the sector.

He pointed out that the exploitation of the Rubber industry is a “blessing in disguise” because there is not enough supply of natural rubber to meet global rubber demand.

According to him, The Ministry has an important role to play alongside mainstream stakeholders like Ministry of agriculture and rural development and Ministry of industry trade and investment towards the sustainable development and industrialization of the rubber sector in the country.
He said that Some of its critical role in Industrialization of rubber sector include make available technical information with respect to sourcing, processing and utilisation of natural rubber through Raw Materials and Research Development Council.

Another role he said is the collaboration with relevant stakeholders in the execution of commercialisation of key innovations and research in the Industry.