The National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN) has lauded the Federal Government for the five-year income-tax exemption granted to cashew processors, saying the move will attract direct investment to the tune of N150b into the country.
The National Publicity Secretary of NCAN, Anga Sotoye, disclosed that the cashew economy is critical to the country’s economic diversification, adding that for the country to stimulate growth in the sector, there’s a need to encourage more investment in cashew production, processing, and value addition.
Sotoye explained that the move will help investors going into value addition for cashew understand that if they have tax relief for five years, they can concentrate and do their business, adding that there is a need for all players in the sector and government to ensure that the incentive is understood across board so that another government agency will not go contrary to the initiative.
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The President of the African Cashew Alliance (ACA), Tola Faseru, while lauding the move, said there’s a need to encourage processors because despite the fact that we produce a lot of commodities, we process less than 10 percent of them. He added that the incentive will lead to the generation of about $4.5 billion from cashews if the cashews can be processed.
When the value addition is done, then we can plan more and do like Vietnam is doing. From the 300,000 tonnes that they produce, they are generating close to $3.5 billion, whereas we produce 270,000 tonnes and we generate just $450m. ”
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“Vietnam does not only process what they have, they also import from Africa – the largest importer of cashew from Africa. So, by exporting our raw cashew to Vietnam, we are exporting our jobs and our earnings. That’s what the minister tried to reverse, to change the narrative.
