Buhari should move quickly to get the Kabul Carpet Centre relocated to Nigeria

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Do you know that the US invested $9.4m in Afghanistan to establish a Kabul carpet export center? With the Taliban seizing power, that project will obviously end. President Buhari should look to cash in on it

[2] For starters, President Buhari should offer political asylum to all those Afghan technocrats trained in modern carper-making techniques

[3] President Buhari should then invite the US to come and invest all the funds set aside for the expansion of the Afghan centre in Nigeria

[4] Jute is the main raw material used to produce carpets. Any Afghan jute farmers who wants to cultivate the crop should be offered political asylum in Nigeria

[5] Total global jute production adds up to about 3.4m tonnes, of which India is the world largest producer with a crop of 1.9m tonnes. With the combined expertise of the Afghans and local Nigerian producers, we should aim to produce at least 1m tonnes by 2025

[6] President Buhari should offer a five year tax holiday to any US company that wants to come and open a carpet manufacturing company in Nigeria

[7] In addition, in exchange for the investment, carpets exports to the US should get an automatic 10% discount

[8] Companies that want to come to Nigeria to open factories that manufacture other products made from jute including twine, rope, and sacks, should also be offered tax holidays

[9] As part of this programme, 10-year tax holidays should be offered to companies that want to establish plants manufacturing carper-making equipment in Nigeria

[10] Bangladesh, the world's second largest producer, generates about $158m from jute exports. This is peanuts because they are adding very little value to it. We should ban the sale of raw jute and only export processed products with the aim of generating at least $2bn annually by 2010