The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved a new policy on local production of bitumen to further diversify the nation’s economy.
The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, disclosed this at the end of the Council meeting which lasted for over eight hours.
He said the policy was approved to develop strategies to enhance, stimulate, and encourage local production of bitumen in the country.
While addressing newsmen, the Minister expressed optimism that the policy, when fully operational, would enable the country to save millions of dollars from the importation of bitumen, which is a raw material used in road construction, worldwide.
“The Ministry of Works and Housing presented a memorandum on the initiative of the President as to our source of bitumen which is used in road construction.
“It was a policy memorandum which revealed that a significant amount of bitumen we used in road construction in Nigeria is imported, therefore creating jobs abroad and recommended to council to approve a directive to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development to develop strategies to enhance, stimulate, and encourage local production of bitumen.
“Essentially, that policy recommendation was approved by the council today to encourage bitumen production locally in Nigeria.
“This will, of course, help to further diversify the economy and open another sub-sector of the extractive and hydro-carbon industry for local opportunities,’’ he said.