DS Journal of Multidisciplinary Volume 2 Issue 3, 15-23, Jul - Sep 2025 ISSN: 3048-4561/ https://doi.org/10.59232/DSM-V2I3P102 © 2025 Dream Science. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) Original Article Challenges of Trade and Industrial Policy on the Ceramic Cottage Industry in Nigeria AJADI Michael Olaniyi 1* , EYINADE Adedapo Sunday 2 1* Department of Fine and Applied Arts, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Nigeria. 2 Department of Fine and Applied Arts, Emmanuel Alayande University of Education, Oyo, Nigeria. *moajadi94@lautech.edu.ng Received: 08 June 2025; Revised: 08 July 2025; Accepted: 04 August 2025; Published: 15 August 2025 Abstract - The paper revolves around the efficacy of national trading policy to regulate the trade process, which will accelerate industrial growth and impose duties on imports to protect the domestic industry against foreign competition. The goals of many policies designed to boost exports and reduce the trade deficit in Nigeria have been subjugated due to the government’s failure to implement the constituted regulations that guide international trade, market networks, and globalization perspectives. These aforementioned problems often stymie the manufacturing rate and the development of cottage industries, which could be the basis for a successful operation of other industries in the country. Therefore, the paper explores the effects of all policies embraced in trade and industrial production in Nigeria, explicates their influences on ceramic cottage industries, and discusses the pitfalls as a guide for future operations. Data on the rates of Change in economics and industrial production were utilized for this study; these data were analyzed using an explanatory approach. The findings revealed, among others, the crucial factors militating against the positive outputs of ceramic industries and how ceramic industries will solve the unemployment issue. As such, the conception of industrial policy by the Nigerian government, both in content and application, should be rightly conceived and geared towards small-scale industries by providing loans, subsidies and incentives to ceramists in order to boost the nation’s economy. Keywords - Ceramics, Small-scale, Industrialization, Trade policy, Tariffs. 1. Introduction In most developed countries, the ceramic industry is one of the largest industries, accounting for a larger percentage of annual production, which is essential for the successful operation of many other sectors. Ceramics were largely part of an empirical art, but in recent times, scientific analysis has revealed ceramics to be a mixture of crystalline materials and frits of different compositions, proportions, and arrangements [1]. For example, highly advanced technological materials include refractory products for metallurgical industries, abrasives for machine tools and automobile industries, glass for the automobile, electronic and electrical industries, enamel, kaolin, cement for architectural and building industry, and other materials used in informatics, biotechnologies, mechanical, and power industry contexts [2]. This modern or industrial approach has shown that ceramics are a mixture of different raw materials and highlighted that products are manufactured through heat-transmuted processes apart from their primary constituents [3]. These raw materials are inorganic, nonmetallic, and crystalline; formed by complex geological processes and in their raw state consist of fluxes, aluminium, silicate, alumina, talc, etc. From prehistoric storage jars to highly advanced technological materials, ceramics have played a key role in human endeavour [4]. This is evident in the significance of clay and firing knowledge in the living standards of