Nigeria risks losing thousands of jobs and billions of naira in potential earnings by exporting gemstones in their raw form instead of processing them into finished products, stakeholders in the mining sector have warned.
They called for the establishment of gemstone processing clusters, affordable financing, improved security and sustained skills development to enable local operators to capture more value from the country’s mineral resources.
The stakeholders spoke at the just-concluded 11th Nigeria Mining Week on Wednesday in Abuja, where industry players stressed that Nigeria could build a competitive gemstone and jewellery industry by investing in cutting, treatment, grading, branding and manufacturing instead of relying largely on the extraction and export of raw stones.
The Country Manager of Adelia, Segun Okoh, said Nigeria needed a coordinated system that would continuously develop skilled workers and entrepreneurs while connecting mining communities to the entire gemstone value chain.
Citing Tanzania’s experience, Okoh advocated the
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