FTA pledges commitment to acquisition of trade skills for export receipts

The Foreign Trade Academy (FTA), a trade development institution in Nigeria, says it is positioned to equip Nigerians with foreign trade skills with a view to ultimately shoring up the country’s export receipts.

At its first board meeting held in Lagos recently, with the theme “Fostering economic growth business investments and sustainable development: role of foreign trade education”, the board members stressed the need to develop a public private partnership in achieving the academy’s goals and objectives.

“The curriculum will be well mapped out in the next three months. It will be funded either by public private partnership or solely private funds,” said Oye Akinsemoyin, president of Nigeria-Vietnam Chamber of Commerce as well as convener of the meeting.

“To take off, the board will hold a conference that will sensitize the public on the benefits of foreign trade skills. The conference will assemble policymakers and industry stakeholders to prepare the ground for soliciting funds,” Akinsemoyin added.

Speaking on the impact of capital controls in Africa’s largest economy and how it may trigger bearish investors for the academy, which plans to raise funds from the capital market, Akinsemoyin envisages the policy will fizzle out as policy makers gradually come to terms with the adverse effect of the control on Nigeria’s $492 billion economy, whose growth contracted by 0.36 percent in the first quarter of 2016.

“We don’t envisage any problem in that area. I don’t see the policy lingering for long. Already, there is a need to review the policy given its effect on the economy, and we anticipate that in the next two years, the economy diversification drive would have gained traction,” he said.

Export trade laws, protocol facilitation and general trading skills are among the skills the academy is poised to impart on students.

Prompted by the slash in Nigeria’s export receipts, the members of the board were optimistic and certain the value the academy seeks to add has come at no better time.

“A lot of people are willing to go into export trade but don’t have the required skills. People in trade negotiation on behalf of the country will also find the academy useful, even as the academy will build minds for the future in export trade,” said Akinsemoyin.

 

LOLADE AKINMURELE