Revenue from non-oil exports cascades to $391m

Revenue from non-oil exports cascades to $391m

Revenue from non-oil exports cascades to $391m

NEPC unfolds strategy to shore up profile

THE much talked about economic
diversification may not have found the
desired footprint in the nation’s non-oil
export, as the profile of the outbound
trade has cascaded from $664 million in
the second quarter of last year to $391
million during the corresponding period
of this year.
The Nigerian Export Promotion Council
(NEPC), which made the disclosure in
Abuja yesterday, attributed the
development to insurgency in the
country and rejection of the nation’s
agriculture produce, especially in
Europe.
Indeed, recently, farm produce of
Nigeria’s origin had come under the
sledge hammer of the European Union
for non compliance to globally
acceptable standards in product
registration, labelling, high
concentration of chemical residue and
other sundry shortcomings.
The Executive Director/Chief Executive
Officer of NEPC, Olusegun Awolowo said
in Abuja yesterday during a
familiarisation visit by the Comptroller
General of the Nigerian Customs Service
(NCS), Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) that it is
important for the service to form a
strong synergy with his agency in other
to bring to a stop the current
embarrassment confronting the nation,
due to the volume of export rejects in
Europe.
To this end, the council said it would
partner with relevant stakeholders who
have a stake in the economic equation of
Nigeria to achieve a zero reject of
Nigerian agricultural produce by 2016.
Comparing the statistics of revenue that
accrued to the non-oil sector in the past
few years, Awolowo said in 2013,
$2.97billion was recorded, a figure he
said represented 15.9 percent increase
over the $2.56 billion achieved in 2012.
He lamented however that the figure
drastically dropped to $664 million in
the second quarter of 2014 and further
went down to $391million in the second
quarter of this year.
According to him, “the country has taken
a dip of 60 per cent in oil revenue. For
any country across the world, it is huge.
Under this circumstance, what could
ordinarily be the next thing is to push
our non-oil export.
“ However, the challenges we are having
in the oil sector are also affecting the
value of our non-oil export. The situation
is compounded with the non payment of
the Export Expansion Grant(EEG) and
the insurgence in the North East which is
the agricultural basket of the nation’’.
He said the committee on fact finding on
the issue was in the United Kingdom to
have a one hand information on the
basis for the rejects and it was shocking
that majority of Nigerian goods were
rejected due to improper documentation,
because exporters fell into the hands of
those that were not authorised by the
government to engage in such
documentation and as such, everything
they claimed to have documented for the
exporters were fake.
“In a bid to unearth the reasons behind
the rejection of our export produce in
Europe, we went to London with seven
agencies of government.