The federal government of Nigeria has taken a decision to protect the local sugar industry. It has banned the importation of refined sugar and its derivatives from the country's free trade zones (FTA) into the Nigerian customs territory.

The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment has issued directives to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) on the importation of refined sugar from the free trade zones. "We have recently noticed that due to the recent location of a sugar refinery in a free trade zone, refined sugar is being imported into the Nigerian customs territory under the concession granted to free trade zone companies.The recent location of a sugar refinery in a free trade zone means that refined sugar is being imported into the Nigerian customs territory as part of the concession granted to companies in free trade zones to export 100% of their output to the Nigerian customs territory, and this is a real potential threat to the objectives of the Nigerian Sugar Master Plan (NSMP)," said a letter from the NPA to the Lagos Port Complex.

Indeed, the NSMP provides a framework to encourage investment in local refined sugar production by securing the Nigerian sugar market for investors under the Backward Integration Program (BIP).