Hmmm!!! Folks, let us say the
truth and shame the devil. Many Nigerian non-oil products exporters have been
defrauded of huge amount of money in the process of exporting agricultural commodities
and solid minerals to foreign countries. Do you know why? They were not trained
on export operations, management, documentations and the best methods of
payment in export trade. This is terrible!!! Nigerians cannot continue to lose
money to foreigners in the course of export business. Exporters, would you like
to keep on being scammed? Why don’t you get a practical manual that explains the
stages of export trade from processing and packaging of commodities to receipt
of payment by the foreign buyers? It explains export operations, export
management, export documentations and methods of payment in export trade? Yes,
it is a contemporary step-by-step guide to export trade. It tells all the
contemporary dynamics in export trade. To get it, click on this link: http://www.tectono-business.com/2016/02/contemporary-step-by-step-guide-to.html
How will you describe the export
business in the country?
The
business environment has come to realise the importance of nonoil export to the
economy. I believe the sector will grow rapidly. However, no sector can grow
appropriately without the right government policies and enabling environment. http://www.tectono-business.com/2016/02/contemporary-step-by-step-guide-to.html
When
you’re filling your Form ‘M’ for imports, the manufacturing company is mandated
to charge for cost and freight. What then happens is that the freight for that
good is given to a foreign company and by so doing, we’re losing money. Why
can’t we have a policy that ensures that the freight is handled by Nigerian
businesses?
That
way, Nigeria logistic companies will grow. There is no reason Nigeria shouldn’t
have a local cargo airline or ocean liners if you consider the volume of our
imports. Toyota alone brings in many millions of cars into Nigeria every year;
all of it is being shipped into the country by foreign liners.
What are the challenges
confronting the non-oil export business?
The
biggest challenge that non-oil export business face and which most small
businesses face is the multiplicity of agencies. When we started this business,
I told my team to go out and collate a breakdown of how export business is
done. With what they came back with, you’d think you were trying to send rocket
to space; the process had so many layers.
Sometimes,
you find out that some of the agencies that are supposed to inspect the goods
before they are exported do not have functional website, you go to their
websites and some of the addresses on their websites are not where they are. http://www.tectono-business.com/2016/02/contemporary-step-by-step-guide-to.html
Getting
the Export Proceed Form is also another challenge. Intending exporter will go
to several banks’ branches and they will tell them that they have no clue where
to get the form. When they go all over the place and couldn’t get the form,
they give up.
The Nigerian Export Processing Council (NEPC)
deserves some praise. It is doing a lot in the area of trainings for intending
exporters but they’re not the only agency involved in the export chain. As a
matter of fact, there is poor coordination among the other agencies involved
with export business.
How can the processes be
simplified?
Government
is the only one that can simplify it. They need to bring all the agencies
together. I believe there should be a centralised export agency that handles
everything that has to do with export. It is possible for all the agencies to
be in one centralised location, so that if for example I am an exporter of yam,
if I take my yam to this centralised location, preferably near the port, where
the various agencies that I need to deal with can be found, then I’m better
off.
While
there, I meet the NEPC and get the required forms; I meet the Customs and get
the required forms. I meet NAFDAC that has to check and I get the required
forms. Standard Organisation of Nigeria is also there. http://www.tectono-business.com/2016/02/contemporary-step-by-step-guide-to.html
So,
there is need to get all the agencies in one centralised place and have a
coordinating body to handle the whole export processes so that if I take my
goods there it is done in one place and by one body.
But Nigeria’s vastness may
frustrate such model.
Cuts
in… Use the Chinese model. When the Chinese wanted to position Huawei as a
leader in the telecoms industry, they came out with a policy that no Huawei
goods should be at the ports for more than 24 hours. The policy ensures that
they must have their export clearance within 24 hours. So when companies were
negotiating for deals, and a Siemens tells you that it will take a month for
your goods to arrive, in a week or thereabout, Huawei has delivered the same
goods. That is the kind of process that we need to put in place to grow our
non-oil export and truly diversify the economy, away from over-dependence on
oil.
What is the country losing
to this menace?
It is
difficult to quantify because I don’t have the data and government doesn’t have
the figure either; but it is massive. One of my friends is the biggest seller
of African foods in Houston, Texas, and has chains of African food outlets.
Sometimes ago, he tried to export yams to the United States; it took him more
than three weeks to get all the documentations done. All along, the yams were
in the container and by the time they got to Houston, half of the yams were
rotten. What he does now is to go to Ghana. There, in two days, the
documentations are ready and he exports. That’s how lack of coordination among
our agencies is killing export business. http://www.tectono-business.com/2016/02/contemporary-step-by-step-guide-to.html
Government is talking about
diversifying the economy, emphasising on growing non-oil export. How well is
your sector keying into that vision?
Logistics
is key to every business. But a lot needs to be done before export can thrive;
we need good road infrastructure, we need to have storage system in some of
these locations to at least store the products before they’re shipped out to
the various local and international markets. I read an article about a village
in Imo State where they harvest plantain but a lot of it rots away because the
roads from the farms in the village to the markets are not good.
Government
needs to work with the private sector and when I say private sector, I don’t
mean the multinationals, the billion naira companies that have the capacity to
take care of these challenges from A-Z. Government should engage operators of
small and medium-scale businesses. In any economy, those that grow the economy
are the small and medium size companies. If you look at the distribution of
labour in the economy, you have more of them; those are the people that
government needs to consult. So logistics play a major role in boosting non-oil
export because, if you have the goods and cannot get it out to the markets in
good time, it becomes a waste. http://www.tectono-business.com/2016/02/contemporary-step-by-step-guide-to.html
How can the country harness
its vast potential in the agriculture and agroprocessing value-chain in return
for foreign earnings?
The
way forward requires that a lot of agencies need to work together, including
Bank of Industry. Cote D’Ivoire is one of the world highest producers of Cocoa.
They earn about $3 billion yearly from cocoa export; they sell it to some of
the companies that make chocolate, the companies convert it into chocolate and
ship it back to Africa selling it at profit. The three biggest chocolate
companies, combined together, made about $35 billion from exports worth less
than $6 billion. http://www.tectono-business.com/2016/02/contemporary-step-by-step-guide-to.html
The
learning here is that if we’re serious about export we need to move away from
just exporting the raw materials to having some small industries that will
pre-process some of these items for more money. It makes no sense for me to
export raw yam when I could process it into other items like yam flower and
earn more proceeds. There is a huge demand in Africa that Nigeria should
actually fill. There is no reason for Mars to be exporting chocolate into the
African sub-region.
Nigeria
should actually take the lead in that area. We’re doing pretty well in cocoa
export; we’re actually doing about $800 million in cocoa export, but if we
process that raw cocoa into processed chocolate we could be making about $4
billion yearly. That is where agencies like Bank of Industry has a role to play
by funding these industries and reduce the amount that the industries need to
pay to access funding. (Point)
Have you heard this? Many
Nigerian exporters have been defrauded of huge amount of money in the process
of exporting commodities to foreign countries. Do you know why? They were not
trained on export operations, management, documentations and the best methods
of payment in export trade. This is terrible!!! Nigerians cannot continue to
lose money to foreigners in the course of export business. Exporters, why don’t
you get a practical manual that teaches the stages of export trade from
processing and packaging of commodities to receipt of payment by the foreign
buyers. It teaches export operations, export management, export documentations
and methods of payment in export trade? It is a contemporary step-by-step guide
to export trade. It tells all the contemporary dynamics in export trade. To get
it, click on the link below:
Hmmm!!! Folks, have you ever
imagined how the financial status of your firm will be when more than 20,000
CEOs and other key decision makers of blue-chip corporations pay for your
products and services or even give you very juicy deals. The link below will
tell you more: http://www.tectono-business.com/2015/07/tectono-business-review-in-conjunction_21.html
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