(Ecofin Agency) - Nigeria imports each year over N400bn ($1.2 billion) worth of paper due to an extremely weak local paper output, Leadership reports

According to the website, 90% of papers used to produce newspapers in the country is imported.

This is due to the fact that the nation “has no forest that has pulpwood (which is used to make paper) in sufficient quantities to meet the demands of the paper industry”, said Ebun Braithwaite, Managing Director of the Nigerian National Paper Manufacturing Company (NNPMC) Ltd.

“The reality is that Nigeria is not yet in a position to manufacture paper in a commercially viable way, meaning without dependency on imported pulp. The country is probably about 10 years away from producing paper from pulp because we lack sustainable raw material resources, apart from the operational, technical and infrastructural challenges”, she added.

Nigeria has three paper mills, including NNPMC. The other two are Nigeria Paper Mill (NPM) Limited and Nigerian Newsprint Manufacturing Company (NNMC) Ltd. Out of the three mills, two, knowingly NPM and NNMC, are producing at low capacity, while the third is not functional at all.