Nigeria, Japan partner for improved workers’ productivity

The National Productivity Centre (NPC) and its counterpart in Japan, Japan Productivity Centre (JPC) have collaborated to improve the productivity of workers in the country’s manufacturing sector.  

The Head of Economic and Commercial Section at Japan Embassy in Nigeria, Mr. Yasuhiro Hashimoto said the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) introduced by the Federal Government would be achieved through improvement of productivity in the Nigerian manufacturing sector.

He spoke in Lagos during a productivity promotion seminar organised under the collaborative efforts of Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), JPC and the NPC.

The NPC Director General Kashim Akor said the training had gone a long way to improve workers’ competencies, knowledge and skills, stressing that productivity are globally acknowledged as crucial and critical to a country’s competitiveness and its integration into the global market. 

He said the event was the second seminar towards improving productivity in Nigeria and some African countries.

Hashimoto said the seminar would promote and propagate the application of KAIZEN which in Japanese parlance implies continuous and participatory improvement in quality and productivity involving the entire company from top management to middle managers and production line workers.

 He said: “The government of Nigeria made its efforts to improve the business environment by adopting the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) in March last year. I believe that improvement in productivity in the Nigerian manufacturing sectors introduced by NPC Nigeria in collaboration with JPC would contribute to the key goals of ERGP.”

Two companies including Bertola Machines Tools Limited and Mouka Limited were selected for the programme with their workers trained on practical steps to improve their productivity.