Omolabake Fasogbon
Current data by Statista has put Nigeria’s services export value at $4.41 billion out of $7.1 trillion global market value as of 2022. Earnings from this sub-sector of the economy is far below pundits’ expectations who held that the sector was not considerably tapped, given that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was yet to design technology to capture ongoing activities in the sector.
Director-General of African Centre for Supply Chain, Dr. Obiora Madu, said it was worrying that Nigeria still have to rely on data captured by external bodies to measure activities and performance of the sub-sector, stressing that a lot was being lost in terms of revenue and opportunities to overlooking services export.
Madu, equated prospects from services sector to that of oil, stating that priority should be given to it as a diversification focus like agriculture as to boost Nigeria’s overall export earnings.
Madu who recently released a book on the sector titled ‘Service Export in Practice’ lamented that despite the popularity around services export in the global space and creation of Service Export Unit by the Nigeria Export Promotion Council(NEPC) in 2006, it was still unknown to many Nigerians who till now still confine export to products and commodity.
According to him, even the least developing countries are increasingly coming to terms with the fortune in services sector which reportedly constitutes about two third of global trade.
“The truth remains that Nigeria is short changing itself in services export, aggravated by regulatory deficit and lack of comprehensive export policy and guidelines. Without a comprehensive export policy, Nigeria may fail to leverage its competitive advantage in various services sector.
“Certainly, this will result in missed opportunities and inability to grow the economy, create necessary job and generate revenue.
“If America could earn eight percent of its foreign exchange from services and intellectual property, while many African countries are also stepping up in this regard, nothing stops Nigeria from realising more considering the nation’s comparative advantages in services.”
To harness the sector, Madu who is also services export expert in Geneva, emphasised among others, a need to get SMEs to mainstream services into their operations to be able to augment Nigeria’s successes in telecommunication and financial services.
He maintained that Nigeria retains huge prospect in global services sector given its strength in key sector’s drivers such as digitisation, financial services, consulting, tourism and transportation.
