The Federal Government is hoping to export goods worth $20m by 2025 as it embarks on programmes aimed at boosting the country’s non-oil exports.
The Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Export Promotion Council, Mr. Segun Awolowo, disclosed this at the opening of a five-day capacity building programme for workers of the agency.
According to NEPC, the programme organised in collaboration with an export development agency in the Netherlands known as the Centre for Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries (CBI), involves the training of 60 workers of NEPC in export marketing/management so that they can in turn act as export coaches and provide training and technical support for Nigerian exporters wishing to export to the European Union countries.
Awolowo said the government was focusing on preparing and developing for exports three core crops, including cocoa, cashew and sesame seeds.
He explained that this was because the CBI had worked with 12 start-ups in Uganda whose products they had developed to be exported to the European Union market, adding that the 12 companies were currently exporting.
He said, “The CBI takes companies and develops them to meet the stringent requirements of getting food and agricultural products to the European Union market. We are working with them to develop companies that can have market access to the EU, and this is particularly based on the rejection of our beans in the EU market.”
Awolowo noted that each of the products mentioned attracted an annual global market share of $30bn, with Nigeria seeking to get $20m of the market share by 2025.
He said the capacity building was part of the efforts of government aimed at enabling the Small and Medium Enterprises to export to the EU market.
He said that empirical studies had shown that key challenges to export were the lack of knowledge, experience and exposure regarding export marketing and management among SME exporters and export regulatory agencies.
Awolowo, however, said the council’s collaboration with the CBI would enhance knowledge and implement capacity building as an outcome of needs analysis.
The representative of the CBI, Mr. James Fitzpatrick, said that Nigeria was chosen as a priority country for the Netherlands in view of the business and trade relations of the two countries and in line with the principle of zero oil plan as well as Nigeria’s huge market size with rich natural resources.
He said, “The main objectives of the programme is to train NEPC coaches and a group of selected companies drawn from the sesame seed, cocoa and cashew sub-sectors to improve the contribution of non-oil export sector to the economy of Nigeria.
“The emphasis is on training farmers, processors and exporters as a whole, to improve productivity, including establishing sustainable local processing capacity for the purposes of exports.”