The Nation Newspaper

Tag: export

  • Bell Oil chief laments jobs’ export

    The Managing Director of Bell Oil & Gas, Mr. Kayode Thomas, has regretted that some firms still take  jobs abroad even when such could be done at home.

    He said it had become imperative for such firms to change or be compelled to do so to promote indigenous firms and create jobs.

    Thomas spoke when his firm’s  spool yard for Glass Reinforced Epoxy (GRE) pipes was inaugurated in Port Harcourt, Rivers State by the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Mr. Denzil Kentebe.

    NCDMB’s spokesman, Obinna Ezeobi, in a statement, said the spool yard manufactures pipes with diverse bends and angles, delivering liquids to various outlets at different temperatures and pressures, hence cannot be manufactured in conventional pipe mills.

    Ezeobi said the NCDMB chief praised Bell Oil and Gas for the investment, which came on the back of the Board’s Nigerian Content Equipment Component Manufacturing and Certification (NCEC) programme commenced under the leadership of the pioneer Executive Secretary, Dr. Ernest Nwapa.

    He described the NCEC’s initiative as laudable, pledging that the Board  would continue to implement the framework and other programmes geared towards encouraging investments and establishment of facilities in Nigeria.

    Kentebe noted that such facilities contribute to the Board’s vision to use the Nigerian Content as a vehicle for industrialisation and creation of employment and training for qualified Nigerians.

    He said the focus of the Board is to create shop floors that would train and empower Nigerians in all sectors of the industry, adding that NCDMB would continue to promote hands-on training in manufacturing, engineering, fabrication, marine, subsea, drilling and well services and all other activities.

  • We want to export Nigerian tailors’

    We want to export Nigerian tailors’

    Otunba Wasiu Jaiyeola Taiwo is a celebrity tailor and the managing director of Wessey Creations and Continental Hotels, Abeokuta. He is the president of the umbrella body of Nigerian tailors,  the Nigerian Union of Tailors (NUT). In this interview with Okorie Uguru, he talks about the business of tailoring, the challenges and his vision of exporting young tailors from Nigeria

    You were elected President of NUT, what was the vision you sold to your members that made you their president? When I wanted to open another workshop, I was looking for tailors to recruit and have a little training before starting the workshop. I discovered I can’t find any around. So, a friend now advised me that I should go to Cotonou, I should go to Senegal, which I did because at that time, I needed to do certain things and I needed some additional hands, so I had no choice than to do that. After that I sat down and asked ‘what is wrong with this country?’ with our population, with the kind of human beings God has given us, we still had to go out to bring tailors to Nigeria and I am a tailor? I said something must be wrong. I started asking other tailors, don’t you have leaders? I started contacting them. They started inviting me and I started talking to them, all within one year. When I got there, I talked to them. They started recognizing that I was part of them. I made them realize that this job is a leading profession that we must take seriously. It is a job that you don’t have to be ashamed of doing it anywhere because the president of any country must bow for a tailor, because none of us can go out naked. That is how it all started. I then sat down and put myself together and came out with a manifesto . Each time I went out, I always gave them my manifesto telling them this is the dream of tailors that I belong to that I want to actualize in the next one year.

    We should not be importing tailors from outside. They should come and import tailors from Nigeria because we have youths that are not doing anything in the country.

    Is tailoring and fashion design lucrative business in Nigeria?

    It is not lucrative to most because most of them are not professionals. The people that even thought them the job do not know.

    So what should be done?

    What should be done is what I am starting now. What we have do first is to train them on how to do the job so that anywhere they are, they can be employed, even in the United States or the United Kingdom. They are going to be trained with modern equipment, and if they are going out of this country, they are going to go out and do legitimate business. That is where we are going. Some of those British or Americans do not want their children to so tailoring or fashion designing. That is an opportunity for us. Those are the opportunities the Chinese of this world are tasking; those are the opportunity that the Indians of this world are taking. When you go abroad and see Indians everywhere, they are there legitimately. What they do is that they open a company there and they tell them there they have the right to bring their work-force from anywhere in the world as long as they would provide the necessary conducive environment for them to work and they will pay their taxes. So, they are bringing investment into their economy. That is what any meaningful government, anywhere in the world, should be doing.  That is what we should be doing. That is our own dream. In another two years, we are going to export tailors outside Nigeria. They will be there producing for Nigeria.

    We are going to influence other people that have money and do not know what to do with it to go into this business that will give them assurance of return on their investment.

    Are you sure they will get this return?

    They will because they are not going to do it alone. There is nothing we are going to do now that BOI is not going to be involved, and one other investment company like that will be involved. So, it will give you assurance that your money will surely come. One, the interest on your money will not be  like these commercial banks. So, with that you pay back the money and be able to do what you are supposed to so, to have a proper footing before you pay back.

    How do you cope with the issue of textile and availability of materials?

    You are talking about textile and other aspects. Now that God has made it that we have different aspects of tailoring. Before, singles persons do them and the muddle up everything. It takes a lot of intelligence to get out it, when you muddle up somebody’s brain…tailoring business takes a lot of brain work. One has to have a vision of what you want to do. That is why you must have a designer; you must have an idea of what you want to do. Then you take it to a cutter, then to the machinist, they put it together , that takes to the finishing level to do the finishing buttoning and so on, before you go on ironing which the final part. So, we have different departments, that how it should be and not to muddle up everything the way our forefathers had been doing. That is how I started also. Most of the time that I was supposed to even think, I wasted that time doing one thing or th other.

    We looked at it that this is not the way to do this, there must be innovations in what we are doing. What we need now is to make sure we get the right result and we will not stop at nothing until  we achieve it because I know what I am talking about. It is as if it is done.

    We are in Abeokuta, the home of Ankara, what are you doing to push the fabric forward?

    The irony of it is that if you see the product I bought in the United States, my adire that started in Itoki here, I bought it in a stall in the United States for about 15 to 20 dollars, but when you look at it, it is something different. It unique, it is on its own. We are equally going back to them. We are going to buy the technology or the owner of the technology and bring them back to Nigeria. The era of stealing technology is over. You don’t have to steal it if you the money to buy it.

    So, the one I bought was unique, I used it as gifts for some top dignitaries.

    What was the difference between that and the one done in Nigeria?

    The difference is that they used original fabrics and they do it in such a way that when you wash it with everything, it will not fade. There, they no longer do it with hand alone. They have brought in little technology to make it better.

    And the aesthetic concept is still adire?

    Yes, you will look at it as if you are seeing adire, but when you feel it, and look at it and see the colour separation and combination, then you will see that it is more than what we are doing  here they produce it in Malaysia and distribute in the U.S. the first place I saw it was in London from one of the persons I bought material from.

    There seems to always be new things in your hotel, the Continental Hotel, Abeokuta…

    Continental Suites is just like every other hotel. What makes it to be different is just the little things we do in making sure it looks new all the time. Even when we started, we aimed to provide five-star services. We started when people don’t believe that such a private enterprise, especially hotel, will do well in Abeokuta. When we came in, we had the Gateway Hotels. It was the only major hotel then. When we started, even people that had their houses in the GRA that had been turned to 20-room guest houses now, slept here. They now saw that it was possible that the standard that we put up then, can be sustained in this kind of environment. That is one thing that we are grateful for, that we lead and the others follow. Today we have hotels in virtually every where in Abeokuta, in the GRA, outside GRA, and so on. But still, I can say we are still leading. We are not relenting in our efforts. We make sure we change things before it gets damaged. It is not until it gets damaged and the customers start complaining before we change it, no. we look at it that it is not really functioning well, then we remove it. We don’t want the customer to know. We want them to have value for their money, simple. That has been our own foundation here at Continental Suites.

    Yes, we are 12 years  and it just looked like we have just started. There is so much challenges. They then Ogun State we know has now acquired five-star status. We have other big hotels that are just coming on board. We are not afraid at all. They are all welcomed on board, they will only drive us to further improve our already high standard. That is why we are not afraid, we are prepared for the challenges ahead. We are very aure we will remain relevant for a very long time.

    Why did you decide to add the cinema hall to the hotel facilities?

    That is what I said before. It is because our hotel is not five-star but we have five-star facilities . We want to keep our guests in here. We don’t want them to lack anything. Name it, there is no kind of facility you have in an five-star facility that we don’t have here. We have almost everything: pedicure and manicure facilities, massage, sauna, night club, and so on. We have now added cinema to it. We have a restaurant, we have about two meeting halls, and so on.  So, we have five-star facilities. We now want to hall branches by God’s grace.

    What has been the response to the cinema hall?

    It has been good. We sat down, looked around and discovered that there was no cinema hall in the whole of Abeokuta. You won’t believe it, but that is the truth.

  • ‘Sound financial sector, agro export competitiveness key to reducing poverty ‘

    ‘Sound financial sector, agro export competitiveness key to reducing poverty ‘

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been advised to focus on finding the right “degree of tightness” in monetary policy to keep the economy stable and boost agro exports.

    Speaking with The Nation, the President, National Cashew Association of Nigeria (NCAN), Mr Tola Faseru said while the bank must implement prudent monetary policy, the government can improve the nation’s balance of payment position by promoting agriculture commodities.

    Noting that the economy has  been exposed to risks stemming from the external environment, fiscal pressures and weaknesses in the  sector, Faseru canvassed implementation of  prudent macroeconomic policies with low fiscal deficits and a flexible exchange rate sheltered from external vulnerabilities.

    For the incoming government to start on a good footing, Faseru said soundness and transparency of the financial sector must remain the main domestic policy challenge, and every efforts must be channeled  towards   addressing credit quality, liquidity and capital adequacy concerns  that would keep financial risks elevated.

    While pushing for strong structural reforms across all sectors, the  NCAN chief said revamping the agro sector is  essential  not  only to improve trade competitiveness, but to encourage more Nigerians to explore new opportunities as the  food sector  gets more integrated into the global economy.

    He said a pragmatic policy impetus by the government will provide the much required stability to agric exports, apart from measures meant to help the government acquire international presence in commodities wherein it has comparative advantage.

    Faseru  stressed  the   need to sustain  the  momentum in agriculture exports in coming few years by  revitalising the Export Expansion Grant(EEG), reducing  transaction costs time, better port gate management and  introducing  fiscal incentives  that  will  contribute  towards  the transformation of the economy.

    In this direction, he called on the CBN to  relax its  position on repatriation of export proceeds, reduce interest rate and  reform the foreign exchange market.

    According to the bank, it will  help the government to achieve more by supporting the agriculture sector with effective and hassle-free agriculture credit, with a special focus on small and marginal farmers, adding that farm credit will underpin the efforts of hard-working farmers.

  • Dangote Cement $300m Senegal plant targets 70% export

    Dangote Cement Industries has commenced production in its $300 million integrated plant in Senegal, located 65 kilometres outside the capital, Dakar.

    The Country Head of the company, Luk Haelterman said though the company came into a saturated market with the lowest price in the continent of about N1,100, its marketing edge has been its superior quality.

    He said while the two initial manufacturers are producing 32.5  which is a lower quality, the company introduced a higher quality that allows for quicker drying for construction professionals and greater income for the same price.

    He said the modern factory affords huge employment opportunities for the 14 million population with emphasis on sustainability.

    Chief Operating Officer, Athanasios Bampos, said the company has a 4,000-Metric tonnes daily and two million production capacity yearly, including and online stack monitoring with limestone deposit that can last for 150 years. He further said they also have captive electricity that produces 30mega watts of electricity through the exploitation of coal, the first in the country.

    He said: “Our edge is the technology we have brought to bear in cement production and the wealth we are crest across the board for the people and government.”

    Sales and Marketing Director, Mr Serigne Dieng, said the firm is already exporting 70 per cent of the product to neigbouring countries of Mali, Gambia, Mauritania, Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau. According to him there is no significant competition as they have the captive market.

    Director Mines and Geology, Mr. Ousmane Cisse while commending Dangote Cement Industry said the $300million factory remains the biggest investment in his country in the last 15 years.

    He said it had changed the economy of his country especially with the quality and content of the economy. According to him the issue if environmental sustainability, good business practice and compliance with regulatory issues is key and he announced that the company had meet all requirements. He added that his government had responded by offering tax holiday and other incentives to the company.

    Nigerian Ambassador to Senegal, Mrs Katyen Jackden, commended the management of Dangote Cement Industry for its pan  Africanism and the host government for their support to the firm.

  • U.S to boost Nigeria’s food safety, export

    U.S to boost Nigeria’s food safety, export

    Nigeria’s effort to improve food safety and boost the export market is to enjoy the support of the U.S. Government through its Agency for International Development (USAID). A statement issued by the U.S. Embassy said the support aimed to drastically reduce food-borne and food-related illnesses in Nigeria.

    The statement said USAID and the U.S. Department of Agriculture had been working with the Nigerian food industry since 2013 to revise the national food policy. “Since 2013, the U.S. Government, through USAID and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has worked with Nigerian food industry stakeholders in the public and private sectors, and with development partners.

    “The aim is to revise the national food policy and develop an implementation strategy. These efforts have laid the foundation for the work of the recently inaugurated committees charged with ensuring that food safety systems in Nigeria are on par with international best practices,” the statement said.

    It said the interventions supported by the U.S. Government would improve food safety, thereby helping Nigerians avoid food-borne and food-related illnesses. According to the U.S. Government, additional support to the ‘farm to table’ food production and processing value chain will ensure that Nigeria’s agricultural exports conform to international standards and food safety requirements.

    It said the ‘farm to table’ programme would also create more profitable agricultural entities and contribute to the diversification of the Nigerian economy. The statement said that a four-day national training on food safety, supported by the United States Government, was ongoing in Abuja.The training was organised in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Health and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. The statement quoted the USAID Mission Director in Nigeria, Dr Michael Harvey, as saying that the training is part of the U.S. Government’s long-term effort to support the National Food Safety

  • ‘Oyo can survive on cassava export’

    Oyo State can survive on exportation of cassava and other farm products, the  governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Teslim Folarin has said.

    He said the state is the second largest producer of cassava in Nigeria after Edo but it has not contributed to the country’s Gross Domestic Products (GDP) due to lack of proper management.

    Folarin, who spoke to journalists in his Oluyole, Ibadan home, lamented the dwindling international oil price.

    He said it was high time each state took steps on how to be financially independent, adding that he has plans to revive the farm settlement across the state if elected.

    According to Folarin, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will be strengthened to improve the output of agricultural sector and add to the state Gross Domestic Products (GDP).

    He noted that farm settlement across the state would be empowered and resuscitated to fulfil its initial objective.

    “We have been talking about diversifying form oil for the past many years but nobody seems to act on it because there are so much money coming from Abuja. Now, there is no money in Abuja again and either we like it or not, we have to take step now.

    “Look at cassava for instance, we can run Oyo State on cassava alone. Oyo State is the second largest producer of cassava after Edo state and it does not contribute to our Gross Domestic Products (GDP) because we don’t export cassava.

    “All we need to do is to mobilise our people to double their effort in production and start to export products of our farm settlement. We also need to strengthen our ministry of agric and rural development so as to improve our output in agricultural sector. We cannot continue waiting for the money from Abuja,” he noted.

  • Wanted: Accredited labs for export products  

    Wanted: Accredited labs for export products  

    Product rejection is a pain in the neck for manufacturers. Local products and services are denied access to international markets because they lack quality certification, which experts blame on inadequate accredited metrology and test laboratories. Assistant Editor CHIKODI OKEREOCHA writes on how the establishment of more internationally accredited laboratories can spur industrialisation.

    It’s a paradox. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimated at $509.9 billion (about N80.3 trillion), has only 84 accredited laboratories to test locally manufactured products or services for international standards.

    South Africa with a GDP of $370.3 billion has 340 accredited labs. China the world’s second largest economy, boasts of 337, 033 labs, according to the ‘2013 International Standards Organisation (ISO) report on the distribution of management system certification’. The United States has 13,000 accredited labs. South Korea has over 7,000 labs.

    Germany, India, Brazil, Egypt have thousands of accredited laboratories each, while Tunisia, Morocco, Kenya and Algeria have hundreds of laboratories each. Other prosperous countries have vibrant, fully accredited and certified laboratories to give their locally manufactured products and services the required competitive edge in international trade. But this is not so in Nigeria where manufacturers, especially as those in the export business continue to agonise over recurring issues of product rejection due to lack of global quality certification caused by inadequate test and metrology labs.

    While certification from internationally accredited labs builds integrity in manufactured products by ensuring that they are tested just once and accepted sequentially anywhere in the world, metrology, which is the science of measurement, determines the right calibration, which is accepted all around the world.

    According to a Quality Management Practitioner and National President of Association of Systems Management Consultants, Mazi Colman Obasi, the need for a metrology lab cannot be over-emphasised. He said such a lab would obtain, conserve, develop, and disseminate the basic requirements and the highest level of calibration standards.

    Obasi told The Nation that it would also provide traceability to the national system and ensure that international technical guidelines are followed for the metrological performance and testing procedures of measuring instruments subject to legal controls. He added that from the point of view of manufacturers, it ensures that their products meet international specifications. He said once a functional metrological lab is established, it is easier for companies, research institutes, testing labs, and institutions of higher learning to interact and collaborate, and find more efficient production processes and new products for the markets. The quality of goods produced will also be more consistent with international standards, hence facilitating commercial transactions, he added.

    Although Nigeria, through the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) recently recorded a feat when she got the approval of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) for her Food Laboratory, stakeholders consider it a drop in the oceanconsidering that the approval covered only Nigeria’s food export commodities, which can be tested at the SON’s laboratory in Lekki, Lagos. For instance, stakeholders in the minerals and mining sector whose activities also form part of the new strategic emphasis on growing the non-oil sector are agonising over the rejection of their mined products.

    They blamed poor quality control, poor regulations and the high rate of illegal/informal mining in the sector as reasons for the rejection of mined products in the international market. To them, the absence of internationally accredited test laboratories and metrology labs constitutes a major technical hurdle for their participation in international trade, so the establishment of more labs to cover the mining sector, for instance, is urgently required.

    Indeed, experts have identified the existence of few laboratories, which have been accredited in line with the requirements of ILAC as one of the major challenges to Nigeria’s quest to participate in international trade. For instance, the President, Champions of Development Nigeria (CDN), Mr. Jonas Yomi, in a recent statement, lamented the non-existence or insignificant number of accredited labs in Nigeria. He noted that accredited labs are the backbone of valid testing results without which products or services cannot be said to be certified or conforming to requirements.

     According to an expert, the benefits of having such internationally accredited labs are numerous and cannot be ignored if Nigeria must take its pride of place in the global market. For one, local products will  be standardised and certified, thereby reducing substantially the preponderance of fake and substandard goods. Besides, access to certification will also drive down costs based on the fact that Nigerian officials will no longer need to travel abroad to get samples of products tested. The reduction in the cost and, indeed, the time taken for certification will be reflected in the economy through a reduction in the prices of goods and services. Cost of output will drastically reduce for the manufacturers through the SON’s intervention.

     That is not all. If Nigeria has her own accredited lab, it will save the nation from the situation whereby multiple testing of product samples are carried out in various countries where they are taken to for marketing and sales. With her accredited lab, products from Nigeria will not be tested more than once, and this will be done here instead of at the convenience of other countries, when they choose to.

    More importantly, with local produce being tested locally and sent all over the world without any hindrance, exports will receive significant boost. This will, in turn, develop the nation’s agricultural sector, as Nigeria has comparative advantage in agricultural products.

     Estimates by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the U.S Department of Commerce show that standards and related conformity assessment (checking that products and services measure up to standards) have an impact on 80 per cent of the world’s trade in commodities.The World Trade Organisation (WTO) requires its members to use international standards of the type developed by ISO to avoid the technical barriers to trade owing to differing national or regional standards. What this implies is that the more accredited labs a nation acquires, the more products or services it is able to export with ISO’s authorisation.

    Indeed, various studies undertaken by development experts have proven that countries with higher number of accredited labs have higher economic performance and productivity than those with lower accredited laboratories. Because of inadequate accredited test labs and metrology labs in Nigeria, goods produced or originating from the country cannot gain acceptance in any country to which they are sent. The only condition for acceptance will be that such goods are subjected to further scrutiny, inspection and testing before being certified in the countries to which they are being exported to, strictly on the terms and conditions set by those countries.

    At moment, Nigeria depends on American standard bodies to get international referencing for its own products, while samples of products to be tested in Nigeria are flown to other foreign countries, such as Ghana and South Africa for testing to occur.

    Expectedly, this has not gone down well with operators and stakeholders in the real sector, including the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), and Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA).

    To them, the situation is responsible for why Nigeria remains uncompetitive in global trade, which is why they are calling for the adoption of an integrated quality management approach.

    Incidentally, such call is coming at a time the Federal Government is shifting focus to the non-oil sector in the hope of warding off the impending economic crisis arising from the continued plunge in oil prices.The Federal Government through the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, recently gave vent to its push for economic diversification when it listed 13 National Strategic Export Products (NSEP) to replace oil.

    The Minister, during an unscheduled inspection and a meeting he held with the Executive Director of Nigerian Exports Promotion Council (NEPC), Mr. Olusegun Awolowo, and members of the management team in Abuja, listed the 13 NSEP in three categories, including agro-industrial- palm oil, cocoa, cashew, sugar and rice); mining related- cement, iron ore/metals, auto parts/cars, aluminium and oil and gas industrial products – petroleum products, fertiliser/urea, petrochemical and methanol.

    Aganga noted that originally 12 products were identified, but that the number was increased because the Executive Director of NEPC made a strong case for the inclusion of cashew on the list. He, however, charged NEPC to deploy its capacity for kick-starting the diversification of the country’s economy in line with the government’s agenda. He said Nigeria could no longer continue to be an import-dependent country. According to him, the nation is, at moment, wasting its foreign reserves on imported products most of which can be produced locally.

    Awolowo agrees with him, noting that NEPC had long recognised the need to develop the non-oil export sub-sector and had in the process held strategic meetings with stakeholders for the development of ideas aimed at improving the foreign exchange earnings by Nigeria through different avenues. These, he said, include the development of a four-year Strategic Plan, One State One Product (OSOP), Nigerian Diaspora Export Programme (NDEX) and the development of new markets for new products.

    As highly commendable as moves by the Minister and the NEPC to diversify the economy by riding on the back of non-oil export is, the challenge again remains the insignificant number of accredited labs and metrology labs in Nigeria. While real sector operators, including the President, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Alhaji Remi Bello, have thrown their weight behind the emphasis on non-oil economy, insisting that it is more inclusive, growth-oriented and characterised by high economic linkages and more sustainable, lack of internationally accredited labs to test and ascertain that locally manufactured export products meet international standards, might throw spanner in the works in nothing is done.

    SON is aware of this danger, which was why the agency inaugurated a committee to establish the National Accreditation Body in May 2013 to draw the roadmap for the nation’s accreditation and certification schemes. The agency also went a notch higher, inaugurating the National Quality Policy Committee on September 26, 2013. The inter-ministerial committee was given the mandate to streamline the regulatory frameworks, and to institute infrastructure development models and modalities for national total quality concept practices that will form the basis for standards in both the public and private sector.

    Although, two of SON’s food technology laboratories were accredited by AALA – ISO/IEC 17025 for chemical and biological testing, while others are said to be at various stages of accreditation, the standard regulatory body is also encouraging private investors to set up laboratory facilities in the country.

  • Boost for Nigeria’s export business

    Boost for Nigeria’s export business

    To drive the national quality assurance scheme by ensuring that locally-produced goods meet international standards on weights and measures, the European Union (EU) has injected 12 million euro, about N2.5bllion, into the Nigerian manufacturing sector. The move, experts say, will boost export business. Assistant Editor Okwy Iroegbu-Chikezie, reports. 

    A major boost has come the way of operators in the export business. The European Union (EU) has committed 12 million euro into the nation’s manufacturing sector for driving the national quality assurance scheme.

    The fund, seen as a shot in the arm of operators in the export business, is for the establishment of National Accreditation System in Nigeria for Standardisation of Made-In-Nigeria goods. This is to enhance the quality of Nigerian products in terms of weight and measures to ensure meeting international standards. The EU is using the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) as the special vehicle to drive the scheme.

    The Nigeria and West Africa Director, UNIDO, Dr. Patrick Kormawa, who disclosed this, said private sector operators have identified some issues and indicated their readiness to work with UNIDO, the EU and the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment.

    This collaboration, he said, will foster competitiveness of locally made products at the international market place. “It is one thing to produce a quality product, but if the consumers do not know the difference between high quality and low quality products, they will not demand for it,” he said.

    The project, Dr Kormawa said, has the objective of improving the quality of products made in Nigeria so that they can be sold locally and in international market.

    Talking on the strength of the collaboration, a Belgian investor and Vice President/Managing Director, Emrc, Mrs. Idit Miller, has said her firm, which specialises in building capacity for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Africa, is working with African SMEs to build capacity in terms of training, skill acquisition, high-tech production processes, marketing and funding.

    Miller, who spoke at the recently concluded Nigerian Raw Materials Exposition organised by the Raw Material Research and Development Council (RMRDC) with the theme: “Achieving Nigerian Industrial Revolution Plan through Raw Materials Sourcing” in Lagos, said she and her colleagues came to learn which raw materials in the country need their intervention in terms of the production and marketing process to meet international standards.

    Miller said: “We are here to learn the production missing link of Nigerian raw materials to ascertain why Nigerian products are rejected overseas. We will help them bring the production process up to speed and also link them up with foreign donors who will provide the needed financing for the small scale industrialists.

    “This is in addition to introducing the products to other African nations, Europe and America. The idea is also  to make oversea countries interested in locally produced products such as the precious stones, marble, agro products, raw materials, in addition to semi produced and processed goods.”

    She added that the firm will also support industrial value chains such as cassava by supporting stakeholders with managerial skill training and financial management to avoid common risks in business management.

    The Belgian investor, however, raised issues with the nation’s business environment, noting that it is a bad omen for policies to be tied to political parties or administrations, which are over-turned immediately that particular party is out of power.

    She said having been involved with SMEs in the country in the last 15 years, she has come to realise that economic advancement in the country cannot be achieved  with political considerations, but rather with a robust policy that will encourage commerce, manufacturing and foreign investment.

    She, therefore, called on policy makers to ensure an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive and be supported with the necessary infrastructure.

    Nigeria, Miller said, needs to take advantage of her position as the largest economy in Africa rather than being dwarfed by others who are less gifted in terms of size and Gross Domestic Product (GDP). She pointed out that for Nigeria to move up on the ladder and attract foreign direct investment which it desperately needs to grow her economy, there is need for the country to improve her infrastructure network, ensure sound fiscal policy and improve on the global index of doing business.

    The World Bank yearly report on ease of doing business on 189 countries ranked Nigeria very poor against other Sub Saharan countries such as South Africa, Kenya and  Ghana. This was why Miller harped on the need to reduce the number of documentation, administrative fees and taxation.

    On his part,Emrc Senior Project Officer, Mr. Francois Kacen, harped on the need for locally produced raw materials to meet international standards and quality such as imbibing agronomics technology to avoid pesticide on agricultural produce.

    He called on the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and the Ministry of Industry, Trade & Investment to ensure that locally produced foods meet international standards by complying with the food and safety standards of overseas trading partners.

    He said: “It is imperative for relevant government agencies to work with oversea agencies to ascertain the standards of each country before the products are exported from the country to avoid rejection at the point of entry.”

    On the poor contribution of the manufacturing sector to the GDP, Kacen said his organisation is ready to give technical assistance to company’s involved in the export and processing business. He urged government to ease the process of registering businesses by reducing the bureaucracy involved in the process. “We offer latest professional and managerial training in Brussels. This is in addition to arranging meetings between manufacturers, donor organisations and investors,” he said.

  • Nigeria’s cocoa export cost to EU rises 30%

    Nigerian cocoa-processing companies say the cost of exporting their products to Europe has been inflated by 30 percent because of a stalemate in agreeing new trade terms with the European Union (EU).

    Nigerian cocoa butter and cake exports are charged from 4.2 per cent to 6.1 per cent of freight-on-board values as taxes at EU ports without an agreement, Felix Oladunjoye, executive secretary of the Cocoa Processors Association of Nigeria, or Copan, said in a phone interview Lagos, the commercial capital.

    Nigeria is the only country in West Africa yet to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement protocol on free trade by the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, he said.

    “It makes Nigeria-origin cocoa butter and cake less competitive in the international market. It is a direct loss of revenue to the local processing industry,” Oladunjoye said.

    Apart from having to export at a cost disadvantage, many of them are burdened by unserviced debts estimated collectively at about 40 billion naira ($241 million), preventing new credit lines from banks, according to Akin Olusuyi, managing director of Ile-Oluji Cocoa Products Ltd. and vice president of Copan.

    Eight processing companies located in the main cocoa-growing region in the southwest have a combined installed capacity of 155,000 metric tons a year.

    Since 2011 they’ve run at 25 per cent to 27 per cent of installed capacity, according to Oladunjoye. Processors also struggle to obtain beans in a local market dominated by exporters’ buying agents, he said.

    Nigeria is the world’s fourth-biggest producer of cocoa after Ivory Coast, Ghana and Indonesia. Nigeria produced 350,000 tons of cocoa in the 2013-2014 season, according to the Agriculture Ministry.

    A government incentive plan to encourage exporters of agricultural items with subsidies ranging from five per cent to 15 per cent has been slow to come into effect, according to Oladunjoye.

    A backlog of applications going back to 2011 is still awaiting approval at the Finance Ministry, he said.

    Three phone calls to numbers listed for Nigeria’s Trade and Investment Ministry went unanswered.

    Finance Ministry officials weren’t immediately available to comment, an official who answered its phone number said.

    Nigeria had in May rejected the proposed trade agreement with the EU because it requires abolition of import duties for manufactured goods from Europe, saying it would lead to dumping of goods and loss of jobs.

     

     

  • NBCC embarks on export, study tour to UK

    The Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) in collaboration with the United Kingdom (UK) Trade and Investment Department (UKTI) will from October 20 to 24 organise an Export Nigeria Study Tour to the UK.

    The President, NBCC, Prince Adeyemi Adefulu, said the Chamber is organising the tour to address the trade imbalance between Nigeria and the UK. “There is an imbalance when it comes to trade between Nigeria and most countries; this tour is just one of many strategies NBCC has lined up to rectify this imbalance in Nigeria’s favour,” he said.

    The tour comes against the backdrop of Nigeria’s inability to generate steady export to the UK due to poor management.

    Other reasons, according to NBCC chief, are limited understanding of the rules and standard governing exports to the UK,  policy inconsistencies and others which he said has made it nearly impossible for about three million Nigerians living in the UK to buy made-in-Nigeria products.