Nigeria's industrial policy aims to bring 25,000 small and midsize enterprises onto digital trade channels by 2026, an early measure of its effort to expand manufacturing and exports across Africa.
The government launched the Nigeria Industrial Policy 2025 on Feb. 17, with Vice President Kashim Shettima representing President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Under the plan, manufacturing would account for 15% of gross domestic product in 2030 and 25% in 2035 if the government's targets are met.
For regional trade, the plan seeks to add 1,000 exporters to markets covered by the African Continental Free Trade Area by 2027. It also targets a 30% increase in export volumes across specified value chains by 2028. The goal for 25,000 enterprises on digital trade channels is a separate 2026 milestone.
The Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment wants road and logistics improvements to reduce trade costs by at least 15%. Its policy identifies high production costs, infrastructure gaps and fragmented value chains among the obstacles to industrial growth.
Electricity poses another challenge. The policy proposes independent power projects for industrial estates and manufacturing clusters. For September, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission recorded an average 5,038 megawatts of available grid capacity, compared with 4,089 megawatts in average hourly generation. Those national figures do not show what individual factories paid for electricity or how reliably they received it.
The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria focused its October annual meeting on the country's ambition to become an African industrial hub. The group has also sought local-sourcing tax rebates and a ₦1 trillion manufacturing stabilization fund, BusinessDay reported. A Nov. 4 BusinessDay editorial made execution the theme of its assessment of that ambition.
The ministry plans to develop measures of progress and use a proposed digital platform to share regular reports with stakeholders. In remarks delivered by Shettima at the launch, Tinubu said, “This administration will not measure success by the number of documents we produce.”
The policy's 2026 digital trade goal provides a near-term measure of progress. Its targets for additional exporters in 2027 and higher export volumes in 2028 follow.
