The Executive Director, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Dr. Ezra Yakusak, yesterday said in five years, Nigeria should be earning not less than $200 billion foreign exchange (forex) from the non-oil sector.
Yakusak made this known at the presentation of the approval letters to Domestic Warehouse operators in Abuja, stating that about 13 of them had been approved for export operators to meet the target.
Members of the technical committee were drawn from the Nigeria Custom Service (NCS), Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service and Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC).
Domestic Warehouse is designed to provide best practices in storage, fast-track logistic solutions, efficient and seamless documentation process, all of which are very important in ensuring timely delivery of exportable products to importers and also a critical factor in complying with export orders.
He noted that the initiative is expected to significantly reduce the cost of doing business for the Micro, Small Medium Enterprises (MSME) exporting companies and further serve as a one-stop transit, facility/terminal, where pre-shipment inspection like packaging/labelling, aggregation, fumigation, pre-shipment inspection of non-oil exports designated consignments are done in preparation for transportation and eventual shipment to export destinations.
”Domestic Warehouse will therefore, provide a veritable platform where export-related agencies and exporters will interface, this definitely, will expedite the formulation of novel solutions to any challenges that could arise in the course of implementation,” he said.
He explained that although, over $375billion export grants were recently approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning has equally written a memo to President Muhammadu Buhari for a similar approvals before sending same to the National Assembly for approval and ratification.
The Domestic Warehouse establishments are structured to capture all the regions of the country based on their export promotion needs.
The Managing Director, Paul Bou Nigeria Limited, Eze Uzuegbu, expressed gratitude to NEPC for establishing the facilities for exporters.
“The idea of the warehouse is for us to move activities in the ports to the hinterland. So, instead of you taking your consignment to the port for process, inspections and sanctification, you do it in the facility and once your consignment is sealed, it goes from there straight into the vessels, that will eliminate all the congestion that happens at the ports,” Uzuegbu said.