By Adebote ‘Seyifunmi
Abuja (Nigeria) — Trade support institutions in Nigeria have been asked to synergize and break bottlenecks that hinders the country’s non-oil export sector from breaking forth.
Managing Director of Koinonia Ventures Limited, Olufemi Boyede, made the call in Abuja, at a 2-day Export Readiness Workshop – KoinEx, with the theme “Exporting your way out of Recession”.
Identifying some of the factors that thwarted non-oil export in Nigeria, Boyede urged exporters to pay detailed attention to quality of products meant for export, especially in the area of packaging, among other significant areas.
He praised the effort of the present administration towards revamping SMEs activities across the nation and called for speedy actions towards the actualization of the Export Expansion Grant (EEG) and other incentives that exporters require.
Another facilitator at the workshop, Professor Ken Ife of Lead Consultant, revealed how profitable export business is and the potentials it holds to redeem Nigeria of her many economic woes.
Prof Ken, citing examples of the Asian tigers, called on Nigerian Government to task relevant agencies to set targets for the export sector that must be achieved within specified time, thereby keeping exporters and relevant agencies on their toes.
The workshop proposed that “a single window should be created, thereby making it possible for ready exporters to walk into one of the relevant agencies, for example, the Nigeria Export Promotion Council and fulfil all the requirements needed by sister agencies rather than hopping from one agency to another, repeating similar registration processes over a long period of time”.
Some of the Trade Support Institution represented at the Workshop include, Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Nigeria Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON).
Logistics giants in the country including, Fedex/Redstar and KSP Logistics were also on ground to guide exporters on the process of transporting exportable items without hindrances.
An official of Koinonia Ventures Ltd, organisers of the workshop, Mayokun Akpoterabor, said the next Export Readiness Workshop will hold in Lagos in April.