Kimberly-Clark Corp. Huggies brand diapers are displayed for a photograph in Princeton, Illinois, U.S., on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018. Kimberly-Clark Corp. is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on Oct. 22, 2018. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg It will also cease manufacturing or marketing Kotex sanitary pads in the economy that was once Africa’s biggest.
Kimberly-Clark restarted operations in 2022 after it announced a similar closure in 2019 following a strategic review of its business.
The closure is the latest in a series of exits by global conglomerates including Procter & Gamble Co., GSK Plc, Bayer AG and Sanofi SA. Last year Unilever Plc reduced the products it manufactured in the country.
Currency Crisis Triggers Exodus of Businesses Out of Nigeria
While recent foreign exchange reforms reduced dollar scarcity that hindered imports of raw materials and repatriation of earnings, the resulting devaluation of the naira inflated costs of operations and the servicing foreign loans for many firms. This is compounded by unreliable electricity supply and congestion at Nigeria’s ports.
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The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria is scheduled to meet President Bola Tinubu next week to discuss challenges hampering production, the industry lobby said in a statement on Friday. The meeting “is necessitated by the state of the manufacturing sector, which has remained a major concern.”