To further fulfil its mandate of promoting, developing and diversifying Nigeria’s non-oil export base, the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has established an Export Trade House in Cairo, Egypt on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement with a private firm.
The newly established Export Trade House is an initiative of the NEPC and Agriverdi Limited to have a central location where Made-in-Nigeria products can be shipped, displayed and distributed to different parts of the world.
This, the council said, is in line with the concept of a trade house that purchases and sells products for other businesses using their international expertise as practiced in China, Switzerland, the United States, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
Speaking at the Advocacy Programme on Export Trade House, yesterday, in Abuja, the NEPC Executive Secretary, Dr Ezra Yakusak said the objective for establishing the trade house in Cairo is to enhance the visibility of made-in-Nigeria products outside the country’s shores, reduce the cost of logistics on the small and medium enterprises [SMEs], and increase Nigeria’s share in the targeted markets.
Others include creating employment for the nation’s teeming youths and increasing foreign direct investment inflows into Nigeria’s economy.
Yakusak explained that businesses that use trade houses could also benefit from its expertise and insight into international markets they operate in as well as get access to vendor financing through loans and credits, stressing that the project is one of the council’s facilities aimed at increasing Nigeria’s international market share.
In his opening remarks, the NEPC Director of International Export Office, Babatunde Faleke, said that the trade house was established because export has become a tool the council must embrace to improve and promote the nation’s non-oil sector to the global market.
Responding, the NEPC partner on the Export trade House in Cairo and Chief Executive Officer, Agranverdi Limited, Mousalati Ghazwan, said that the partnership would ensure there are no more defaults in payments for Nigerian products.
Ghazwan noted, “our organization will ensure all quality defaults in Nigeria goods are removed. They will be thoroughly inspected to meet international standards. The partnership with NEPC will ensure that export funds are paid to Nigeria exporters as and when due but I must say that we will focus more on agro-products.’’
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