 The Royal Materials Research and Development Centre is pioneering the advancement of the nation's industrial sector through research and fabrication of equipment to aid industrial growth in the country. This discovery was made during a tour of three main facilities owned and operated by the Council in the FCT. Plus TV news correspondent Emmanuel Higiene completes the report. The three facilities are the resource centre situated in its headquarters where various displays of research materials and awards, one for innovative initiatives, where conspicuously displayed while the other two are mainly the testing and certification laboratories. The aim, according to officials of the centre, is to aid the development of other critical sectors of the economy. Engineer Orbasi A2, the deputy director in the engine design development division, explained the functions and importance of these equipment to the media and how these inventions can transform the nation's economy when fully deployed. Even for Europeans today, raw material is key. There cannot be any national development if you don't develop raw materials. Because raw materials drive industries and industries drive your GDP growth, your economy growth and things like that. And that's why we are in this business of raw materials. All of us. I can only be maybe a master of telling you this story but there are people who are masters who are sitting at the background developing this thing. I'm not everywhere. We have specialisation in every sector of the economy you think about and we have crack people who are doing that. That's why you see these results. The raw materials research and development centre is a non-profit making body but its contribution to the growth and development of the nation is critical if private entities can key in and take advantage of the various locally fabricated inventions by the centre. Raw materials are so same. Do you know the quantum of SMEs that have emerged because they now have the capacity to utilise the raw materials? Initially in the past some companies, paint industries were importing their basic processed talc and kaolin. Today we have plants that process that to industrial standards and they are major molecular imputes for industries. If you come to the chemical sector, we have so many companies that are producing a lot of locally sourced chemical products because they now have the capacity. We work closely all in actualising our mandate which of course is very simple sourcing, development and utilisation of raw materials as industrial inputs and that is where raw materials research and development council is a unique organisation. We have other agencies that have mandate on raw materials but our mandate on raw materials is not food for consumption. It's not materials for industries and somebody said we need to move our economy from consumption to production and so any nation that we want to grow we look in the direction of manufacturing. You cannot grow your GTP, you cannot grow your economy if you are not manufacturing, if you don't have products in the market. The aim of the tour according to the research centre is to create awareness on the activities of centre and to assure Nigerians mostly the private manufacturing sector on the advantage of partnering with it. This ultimately will reduce importation to its barest minimum, create more jobs for the people and encourage local production that will unlock the nation's full potentials.