How to make Nigerian products compete globally -SON boss

• Published date: 08 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

The Director General of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, Mallam Farouk Salim has said that SON will do everything humanly possible to make Nigerian products to be able to compete favourably in the foreign market.

Speaking in Lagos at SON's training for MSMEs and exhibition of MANCAP certified [locally made SMEs] products, the DG of the government regulatory body said over the years, SON has put in place programmes for capacity building for micro small and medium enterprises [MSME's] with discounts, waivers and products certification processes for that sector to ensure the products and services offered meets the specified requirements of the standards and to compete favourably in the international space. At the three days exhibition which was one of the activities to mark SON's 50th anniversary, the DG who was represented by Dr. Richard Adewunmi, the Marketing Director of the Agency said that SON is also providing proper testing platform for locally produced goods in order to prevent them from being rejected in the foreign markets.

'This we are doing by equipping our engineering laboratories, the national metrology institute in Enugu, the leather and textile laboratories in foods, chemical and electrical laboratories in Ogba Lagos,' stated Salim.

At the inaugural exhibition which was attended by over 120 companies which had met SON's certification of standards, the DG noted that to further strengthen the core mandate of the regulatory Agency, that they are constructing new regional offices and rehabilitating old office buildings, while also working closely with state governments to provide lands for construction of offices and laboratories in order to enable prompt service delivery to factories and MSMEs.

'We recently commissioned the Kano regional training facility to provide training services for our stakeholders in the North West and would be commissioning in North East regional office complex in Bauchi state in a few days,' he said.

While congratulating the entire family of SON both past and present for their service to the nation, Salim traced back the history of the establishment of SON by an enabling Act No. 56 of December 1971; known as the Standards Organisation of Nigeria cap 412 of the laws of Federal Republic of Nigeria during the military era.

'Today, the amended version of the statute, SON Act No. 14 of 2015 has not only given us more responsibilities but has also armed us with the powers to conduct search, arrest, prosecute and seal up...