Nigerian manufacturers gear up to penetrate West African market

Nigerian manufacturers are strategising to consolidate their foothold on the West African market, which has hitherto been infiltrated by Asian and European exporters, findings have shown.

‘’We are making strategic plans to occupy the West African markets. In Cameroon, we are champions as China has no foothold there. We are in Ghana, Burkina Faso and other ECOWAS markets,’’ said Dom Opara, general manager of Posh International, a top exporter of salon equipment and member of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria Export Group (MANEG).

Information obtained by BusinessDay from the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) shows that total non-oil transactions made by Nigeria in the Economic Community of West African States in 2013 were worth $375.34 million. Top destinations of most manufactured goods in the period were Ghana, Niger, Cote D’Ivoire, Togo, Benin Republic and Burkina Faso. Others were Guinea, Mali, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Manufactured products exported to the region within the year included tobacco products, plastics, rubber footwear, noodles, insecticides and beverages. Others are poly bags, tomato paste and insecticides, among others.

‘’Do you know that bathroom slippers (footwear) is in high demand in Burkina Faso? There are so many unexploited opportunities in the region and we are prepared as the CET approaches,’’ said Tunde Oyelola, chairman, MANEG.

However, it has been identified that most of the export commodities within the period under review were agricultural products, which often serve as raw materials for European and Asian companies. For example, cocoa, which is a raw material in beverage firms, occupied 26 percent of the country’s total non-oil many export commodities recorded with the period. Others were goat skin, cashew nuts, ground nuts, rubber, edible nuts and sheep, among others.

“Exporting raw materials is not good enough. Despite huge size of the population, Nigeria is yet to achieve its potentials to become the biggest export trader with West Africa. Efforts have been made in the past to increase our share of this market, but there are still some challenges that need to be overcome,’’ said Olusegun Awolowo, executive director/ chief executive officer, NEPC.

The Common External Tariff Regime (CET) is set to begin on January 1, 2015. The regime is expected to achieve uniformity in tariff among 15 ECOWAS countries as well as throw boundaries open for exporters. But the challenge of Nigerian manufacturers, who are expected to compete during the regime, are enormous, ranging from high energy spend, lack of price competitiveness, poor infrastructure, multiplicity of taxes, gridlocks at ports and difficulty in accessing raw materials.

“Currently, the Nigerian manufacturing sector suffers significant competitiveness issues which include high energy and funds costs, high regulatory charges and abysmal ports, among others,’’ said Muda Yusuf, director-general, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

 

ODINAKA ANUDU