Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and The Centre for Promotion of Imports from developing countries (CBI) have gone into partnership to build the capacity of exporters to further boost the contribution of non-oil exports to the nation’s economy.
Olusegun Awolowo, executive director of NEPC, disclosed this development on Tuesday in Abuja, at the opening of a two-day National Strategic Conference on Small and Medium Enterprises Export Development.
The collaboration aims at providing technical support to develop Nigeria’s capacity to export products to the European Union market, Awolowo said, saying, “Nigeria and the Netherlands have been trading partners for decades even as the European Union has consistently been Nigeria’s largest trading partner.
“To rescue the economy therefore, the Council has developed the Zero Oil Plan, which identifies eleven priority product sectors, out of which CBI is focusing on three for this programme, namely – Cocoa, Cashew and Sesame.”
While acknowledging the impact and contributions of CBI to economies of developing countries, he stated that the selection of the products is based on the Export Potential Indicator of the International Trade Centre (ITC) to know where demand is at present in the EU as well as the unused potential of Nigeria.
Patrick Gouka, senior programme manager, East and Southern Africa CBI and leader of the CBI three-man team, said the Export Coaching Programme was “intended to bring about economic empowerment of Nigerians through capacity building that would enhance productivity in the export sector.”
According to Gouka, emphasis of the programme will be on value-addition, quality, packaging and increased production for the chosen commodities in order to gain premium pricing at the international market.
The programme will be implemented in stages: the Strategic Conference, Competences Development and Trade Awareness Mission to the EU, which covers capacity building for NEPC, Exporters (especially the SMEs) and trade support institutions.
Also, market research, market information, market access requirements, market segments, buyers need, trade channels and price development, will also be covered in the programme.
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