Nigeria is dragging its feet in tapping into enormous opportunities in the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce, says.
AGOA is a United States’ trade pact with Africa to enable them export up to 6,400 of their products without paying tariffs.
Many African countries have leveraged the opportunity to export many of their commodities and products to the world’s largest economy, but Nigeria is still dragging its feet despite extension of the pact from 2015 to 2025.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ engagement forum in Lagos, Olabintan Famutimi, president, Nigerian-American Chamber, said Nigeria should take advantage of the opportunity AGAO offered to promote export of locally made goods to the United States of America.
“There are so many opportunities that Nigerian companies should take advantage of, which they haven’t been doing over the years,” Famutimi said at the engagement forum, which brought together the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), USAID, NEXTT and Trade Investment Hub in Lagos.
“Nigeria didn’t take advantage of the first 15 years of AGOA existence. In the whole of year 2014, after the Nigerian Bureau Statistics were computed, Nigerian exports to the US under this Act totalled $2.6 million, while South Africa exported in excess of $1.2 billion,” he said.
According to Famutimi, the event is targeted at encouraging Nigerians to change from their culture of living on import and oil, to that of exportation, adding that doing this will help improve the economy by bringing in sufficient foreign exchange.
The Central Bank of Nigeria has a lot of funds, managed by the banks, targeted at helping companies finance their businesses without having landed properties, and other collaterals with which to borrow money, he said.
At the panel of discussion on ‘How to Become an AGOA Export Ready Company,’ Babatunde Falake, South-West coordinator of NEPC, said export readiness was a process, saying, “It means having a product ready and in a reasonable quantity and good quality.”
One of the panellists, Liz Abiodun Oluwadare, implementation support specialist for NEXTT, said export readiness was dependent on five Ps, which include “having and knowing your product; having a profile of your product; having a proper package; promotion; as well as adoption of right practices and procedures.”
“In the nearby future, hopefully, Nigeria will export, make money and change things. We will change from a country that depends solely on oil to one that exports and generates hard currencies for the betterment of the economy. We are trying to make this a reality by talking to the American government to ensure that they keep the door open for us, and also we are talking to the Federal Government of Nigeria to offer assistance,” Olabintan Famutimi said.
ODINAKA ANUDU & CHINYERE OKEKE
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