The South west offices of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), the Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) and the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), have concluded plans to organize a workshop on the challenges facing export business in Nigeria.
The workshop which is billed to hold in Ibadan next week, has the theme: "Promoting Non-Oil export Shipping Trade Capacity In The Southwest"
Speaking during a pre event press conference held in Apapa, Lagos on Monday, the organizing committee chairman who is also the Coordinator, Western Zone of NIMASA, Mr. Olayemi Abass, said that the decision to organize such a workshop was borne out of the need to ensure that the nation is not a mono product economy.
Abass, also said that the three government agencies that are spearheading the workshop are strategically positioned to fashion out a frame wok that will boost non-oil exports in Nigeria.
According to him, “Sometimes early in the year, we made a joint proposal to have an interagency workshop and to promote export shipping trade with the theme, “Inter agency stakeholders workshop on promoting non-oil exports in southwest” the emphasis is on non-oil export”
“We realized that Nigerian cannot remain a mono product economy and from long time we have been playing lips service. This is strategically positioned to change thing. We looked at the three agencies and said that they are in good position to do something to initiate a process to sensitize stakeholders to fashion out a framework for boosting non-oil exports and the shipping logistics chain”
“Consequently, a committee of the three agencies was formed and we sort approvals from our different chief executives towards the workshop and we got the go-ahead from the CEO to organize this workshop”.
Now the intention is this because you will wonder why southwest, the initiative is coming from the southwest offices of the various agencies, however when this succeeds it will go to other zones like the North, Delta Region and the Eastern region. So it will go round all the regions of the country”, he said
Also speaking, the Zonal Coordinator, Southwest, NSC. Mr. Rotimi Anifowose, said that the coming workshop intends to deal with the challenges that are facing the export sector.
He added that it will also provide a means of ensuring accelerated growth in the sector.
"The title said addressing the challenges of non-oil export trade in the Southwest. So whatever it is that is a challenge, this particular workshop is designed to look at it. And the essence of this briefing is that you as our partners will help to emphasis the fact that these three agencies are talking on the importance of non-oil exports to the nation’s economy”.
“This programme will look at the processes of accelerating the growth of this vital sector and it will equally address the challenges in this sector. And then it will go further to look at how do we make sure that have identified the challenges that there are enough cargo support initiative and transport logistics that can drive this important aspect" he said.
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