Industry experts in the field of commence have identified innovation and technology as the right approach Nigeria and Africa must deploy to boost socio-economic, institutional development in non-oil sector.
They say Nigeria must process its export-bound agricultural products to add greater value to maximise income on the products.
Abel Osuji, internal audit director of the African Export-Import Bank, said there was need to develop the agriculture value-chain to boost processing and increase income for the nation, adding that 80 percent of revenue was usually lost because value was never added to agro produce export from Nigeria and Africa at large.
Osuji said this while delivering a lecture entitled: “Exploiting Exporting Opportunities across African Regional Market – a Paradigm Shift for Emerging African Entrepreneurs” in Lagos at an event organised by the University of Port Harcourt Faculty of Management Sciences Alumni Class of 1992.
According to Osuji, “Exporting processed goods apart from increasing revenue will also help the nation to take charge of markets from production through processing to distribution, “Exporting things unprocessed is not doing our country any good.”
Austine Obajidi, a shipping expert on his part, called on the Federal Government to encourage non-oil exports business by providing the right business environment.
Obijidi observed that for any country to survive, it needed to do export so that there would be balance of trade, adding exporters as a matter of importance need to secure genuine contracts and carry out proper documentations with relevant agencies.
Another member of the body, Stanley Okocha, called for sustained funding of research on agriculture to grow the nation’s non-oil sector, saying the nation’s leadership must incorporate the academia by funding research to achieve innovation in agriculture.
“We have to take agriculture seriously. Government should reinvent the agriculture value-chain and we must work out solutions for sustainable development. For that sustainable development to happen, we must develop our agriculture research institutes and develop technology to make progress,” he said.
Osuji in his lecture opines that Africa earned only 20 per cent of the revenue from cocoa export while countries that processed the commodity made 80 per cent profit.
“Cocoa is a $100 billion business. Africa produces about 80 per cent seeds but what comes to the continent as income is only 20 percent. Why is this so?
“Africa is only playing in the first segment. Growing, collection, fermentation and exporting and we make only $20 billion out of the $80 billion coming in.”
He said the time for portfolio investment was gone and that it was time for Nigeria to take the bull by the horn and service an identified market by grooming entrepreneurs.
The director also stressed the need to increase food processing to avert huge post-harvest loses in Nigeria and other African countries.
He explained the benefits of developing the yam value-chain, noting that Nigeria produced 67 percent of total yam produce from West Africa but was exporting less than 1 percent of the commodity.
Osuji further said entrepreneurial intervention expectations in this area of arts, fashion and the garments’ industry required deploying technology and innovative solutions to resolve market friction at scale.
“Waste management sector value-chain offers huge opportunities through recycling, especially in a high-density city like Lagos,” Osuji said.
