Gilbert Ekugbe
The Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), yesterday, stated that the $4.850 billion generated from non-oil export proceeds in 2022, was the best recorded after 47 years.
The feat achieved according to the Council, was courtesy of its intervention and other stakeholders in the export business.
The Regional Coordinator, South West Region, Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Mr. Akintunde Folorunsho, at an export capacity building programme for registered exporters organised by the Council, said the non-oil export sector’s growth performance was significant, but stated that the first half of 2023 has witnessed a slight drop due to the elections and transition in government.
He however, stated that the essence of the capacity building programme for registered exporters was to give exporters the requisite knowledge to penetrate the export market.
“The group of exporters that have been selected are the ones that have engaged in the export clinic for us to teach them the rudiments of export business. Today’s project is a step further into build their capacity in terms of supply chain, logistics, certification to penetrate the export market,” he said.
In his words: “So far, we have registered over 80 exporters in this programme and have invited reputable consultants, NIRSAL and financial institutions in our bid to make the nation’s non-oil exporters competitive globally.”
He expressed concerns over the inability of Nigerian exporters to access the $3 trillion global fund for export business, saying some Nigerian exporters lacked the capacity to submit bankable proposals to access the fund
“It is quite true that there are lots of funds available for exporters to take advantage, but some of them lack the capacity to submit bankable proposals to access the fund. This is the reason why we invited the financial institutions to take them through what is needed to access those funds.
“There is a $3 trillion funds available globally for exporters to grow their businesses. There are also funds available in Nigeria domiciled in Nigeria Export and Import (NEXIM) Bank, Bank of Industry (BoI) and the Bank of Agriculture (BOA) that enterprises, SMEs are unable to access because of the lack of capacity gaps of our exporters to leverage this opportunity,” he lamented.
He noted that the export building capacity initiative was aimed at bridging the knowledge and capacity gap for Nigerian exporters to get easy access to these funds
