The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has moved to turn exporters in the South-South region into big players in the emerging largest trade bloc in the world, the 2.5 billion population African trade bloc.
The Council says the African Free Continental Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement is set to offer the best market opportunities to Nigerian producers and exporters who face difficulties accessing the European, American and other market blocs.
This is done as NEPC in collaboration with NICERT Consulting Limited organised a day capacity building workshop for MSMEs, on Monday, February 14, 2022, in Port Harcourt.
The trade event, which had over 60 exporters in attendance, had the theme; “Facilitating Exporters Market Access for MSMEs.”
To begin serious grooming of the South-South zone of Nigeria in the national mobilisation drive for non-oil export towards adding $120 billion to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the next 10 years, NEPC held the workshop to facilitate strategic export market access for the over 60 participants.
Addressing the participants at Aldgate Hotel on Sani Abacha Road, the zonal coordinator, Joe Itah, who spoke on behalf of the executive director, Ezra Yakusak, said the programme in Port Harcourt was part of a national drive that had so far taken place in six states.
The effort is in pursuit of the Federal Government’s economic diversification drive, and in tandem with one of the prime aspects of NEPC’s mandate aimed at meeting the overarching objective of the programme, which he said was to acquaint Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) with the requisite knowledge to penetrate the foreign market and compete favourably with their peers from other nations of the world.
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He stated: “Today’s event is couched with the focus of maximizing our endowed economic position – in areas of both competitive and comparative advantages, for the West African market, not forgetting also the prospects put forward by the establishment of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) – the largest single trade bloc expected to unite over 2.5Billion people and population within the African market.
“Let me consider every exporter here as being fortunate because the challenges surrounding issues of market penetration are numerous, quite daunting, and frustrating especially when you are either a budding exporter or an old hand wanting to introduce your product to a new market. A perfect grasp of market access techniques, therefore, remains one of the needed bedrocks in the value-chain to successful export business.”
As an exporter, he said, you have to always keep an eye on how to find buyers for your export products – granted that you already have quality products and in sustainable quantities because if you are not able to identify customers and offload your products, all your efforts will be in vain. “Selling products in the international market has never been a simple adventure – considering various inhibiting characteristics such as diverse language, geographical distance, cultural differences, the difference in respective Government policy focuses, and lack of market knowledge among others – which exporters have to overcome.”
One of the experts in market penetration techniques, Aliu S. Sadiq, an assistant director with NEPC, said AfCFTA is around the corner, only waiting for the structures to be put in place to moderate the free market zone so goods can begin to move easily within Africa.
Sadiq also said the continent is working hard to make goods move from one African country to the other instead of having to first move to Europe before coming back to Africa, a scenario he said has continued to make the goods not competitive even within Africa. The assistant director insisted that the West Africa market zone (ECOWAS) is Nigeria’s first hanging fruit as a market to capture.
He said supply chain issues are top on the list of challenges facing exporters and mentioned product range, product size/grading, procurement of raw materials, compliance with European guidelines, quality control procedure, steady production flow, and others that he said pose big challenges to exporters. He said exporters must control the above factors in order to be ready with products for the international market any time a customer anywhere in the world placed an order.
He said an exporter must work hard to be at the market gate before banging on the door for the market, saying any disappointment would close the window. He warned Nigerian exporters to stay clear of cheating in the export business because it can easily destroy the career due to hyper-sensitivity of the international business circle.
He listed logistics, marketing, sales planning, pricing, export experience, financing, communication, management, corporate social responsibility (CSR), need to follow the rules, and human resource management as other problem clusters that exporters must study and control to be sure of success.
Another expert, Tobi Raji of NICERT, took the exporters through various certification and registration processes that are critical for operations and urged them to work hard to glide through. He said no person would be able to export items without certification and registrations.
An engineer and enterprise expert, Emeka Unachukwu, former president of the Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce, said Ghana seems ahead of Nigeria in global market penetration because they long established a commodity exchange market through which they can send goods to any market in the world at cheaper prices.
He said emphasis for exporters must be on achieving competitive products that must make waves at home first. “Export means you set higher standards for your product so as to compete globally.”
He said there are many financing windows for export business but the budding exporter must get other things right and do tight documentation from the beginning of the business.
The vice president of the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Scale (NASME), Dogala Sakpege, urged those in export business to endeavour to join the association to enable them access many support facilities.
