The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), on Wednesday, charged women-owned businesses (WOBs) in the beauty and wellness sector, to embrace standards and quality control in the production of their products, to ensure marketability and competitiveness in local and international markets.
On its part, the council said it is committed to empowering them with the right information to ensure that standards and quality are not compromised.
The executive director and chief executive officer of the council, Olusegun Awolowo, made this position known in a keynote address delivered during a capacity building workshop on “quality control and standard procedures for WOBs in beauty and wellness sector” held in Asaba, Delta State.
Awolowo, represented by Esther Ikporah, deputy director, export development and incentives, told the business owners/exporters that the workshop was necessitated by the huge potential of women in export business, and the need to develop and promote the products of the beauty and wellness sector which has a growing demand with about 77 percent of Nigerian women use skin-enhancing products (the highest percentage in the world).
According to him, “we envisage the current and potential capacity of the market to continue growing through the years, hence causing a plunging of women entrepreneurs in both local and international space to gain an ample market share.
It is, therefore, very important for the right information to be passed across to ensure that standards and quality are not compromised, especially in our country where anyone can pose as an organic skincare formulator, but most of their products cannot be sold in the international market, he said.
He noted that beauty and wellness were integral to the mental, physical, economic and social development of any being as the beauty industry is reportedly worth billions of dollars whilst the African beauty and personal care is put at $12 billion.
Unfortunately, Nigeria is yet to take a giant share of this market despite its huge population and foreign giants are still the biggest gainers in an industry that is daily growing in leaps and bounds, Awolowo lamented.
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In view of this, it has become imperative to equip WOBs in this sector with the requisite knowledge, he said.
He recalled that in its ardent commitment to the development and diversification of the non-oil sector, and more so to gender inclusiveness, the NEPC launched a partnership with International Trade Centre (ITC) on the SheTrades Initiative in June 2016, with a commitment of connecting 200,000 women entrepreneurs to the global market by the year 2021 as part of the broader UN goal of connecting three million women entrepreneurs taking part in the workshop.
The trade promotion adviser, NEPC Asaba export assistance office, Peter Onokpasa noted that the council’s recent survey in Delta State on products of these categories show that entrepreneurs in the state produce a lot of beauty and wellness products ranging from cosmetics, soaps, pain relaxer, shampoo, perfumes, body creams.
