On Wednesday 5th, October 2016, Chief Eric Umeofia, the Chief Executive Officer of Erisco Foods Limited announced that his firm would be shutting down its $150 million manufacturing plant in Lagos, and in the process, about 1,500 of the company’s 2,000 workers will be laid off.

According to Umeofia, the tomato paste manufacturing plant will be shut down for 30 days. He added that if the foreign exchange situation in the country does not improve, he will move manufacturing firm out of Nigeria.

Umeofia said told The Punch that his company “cannot get forex to buy machinery. We run our big factory with forex sourced from the parallel market at the exchange rate of N450/dollar. The companies that get forex at the official exchange rate are those that import items included in the list of items not valid for forex.”

Read more on The Punch.