Efforts by the Federal Government to boost the export of
non-oil commodities as part of measures to fight economic slump and diversify
revenue sources may remain elusive for lack of commitment to address key sector
challenges.
Stakeholders in the export sector, who gathered at the
yearly Success Edge International Limited’s ‘Money for Business’ Conference
in Lagos, listed, challenges to include inadequate policy, inconsistency, poor
infrastructure and inability to properly engage Small and Medium scale
Enterprises (SMEs) as bane to the development of the sector. Nigeria continued
to operate a mono-economy with about 75 per cent of government revenue coming
from exportation of crude oil. Given that earnings from oil continue to
decline, government was forced to seek measures to diversify by tapping into other
sectors, such as agriculture, agro-processes, agribusiness, industry and
manufacturing, the petrochemicals, downstream and among others.
But efforts must be backed by commitment to tackle challenges and upgrade the sector to global standard otherwise the talks would lead the country nowhere, experts argued. “To be very candid government is not committed to exportation. Government is not serious because they have a cheap way of making money from oil and they are still dancing around that. If government is serious, there are a lot of policies and guidelines that need to change. There are a lot of policy somersault because government is not consistent,” Managing Director of the organisation, Godwin Oyefeso said. Stressing that Nigeria’s economy may not achieve the desired growth if it remained import depended, Oyefeso urged Nigerians willing to export to concentrate on value addition.
Regional Investment Operations Manager at GroFin (West Africa), Femi Salami, noted that most of the
people, who are into exportation in the country lack basic fundamentals that
could make their businesses sustainable. Yes, that is why many inexperienced exporters have been defrauded in the process of
exporting goods to other countries owing to the fact that they do not have
adequate training on export operations, export management, export documentations
and methods of payment is export business. The link below is a compilation on
all the steps exporters should follow from the point of packaging the goods they
intend to export to the point of payment. To read it, click here.
Femi Salami disclosed that about 72 per cent of
businesses seeking financial assistance from the company lack formal accounting
system while about 57 have no business plan. To him, players must find
businesses with sustainable returns and social impact to make a difference.
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