NEPC designs new strategy on export products usage
From YUSUF ABU, Ilorin
The Nigeria Exports Promotion Council ( NEPC) has designed a new strategy that would ensure the use of export products as a way of addressing the dwindling global economy.
The acting executive director and chief executive officer of the council, Mr. Aliyu Lawal, stated this in Ilorin during a one-day workshop on product and market development forNigeria’s exportable products organized between the Kwara state government and the NEPC Akure zonal office.
He said “ the federal government has identified the potential of non-oil export drive as a veritable path for putting Nigeria’s economy on a sound track to achieve vision 2020”.
The acting executive director added that the council would focus strongly on the encouragement of value addition for both new and existing products by addressing supply based on their quality for export production.
He also said that the council would embark on promotion of services for export through its special programmes on engineering services, Nigerian films ( Nollywood) and the music industry.
Lawal stressed further that in the area of market development, efforts will be intensified in market research, market intelligence gathering, participation in foreign trade fairs and exhibitions, organization of trade missions and formulation of the nation’s informal export trade.
While noting further that Kwara state government is endowed with high concentration of agricultural products , solid minerals , handcrafts and tourism sites among others and a handful of manufactured products with high export potentials, he said if these can be well developed the propensity for international comparative advantage would be of immense benefit for the country.
Lawal called on other levels of government , private individuals and companies to rise up towards tackling the factors militating the growth of these products in order to move the nation forward .
Earlier, in his address the Kwara state deputy governor, Chief Joel Ogundeji, who commended the Akure zone of NEPC for their foresight in the development of export products in the country, said that the gesture would assist the nation to move forward.
Ogundeji who recalled the olden days of cocoa, rubber and oil palm plantations in the South-West, the historic groundnuts and cotton pyramids in the North said if Nigeria would go back to this period there would be low level of dependence in oil as a source of revenue in the country.