An expert and the Director General of Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce; Joyce Akpata, has fingered the road infrastructure as a major problem in the nation’s logistics chain especially in the maritime sector.
Akpata said this recently in Lagos at a cocktail dinner organised by Clarion Events West Africa as a build- up to the coming annual Multimodal West Africa, exhibition which holds this week in Lagos.
Akpata who applauded the organisers of the exhibition for consistency also said that the government has a huge role to play in the area of providing infrastructure for logistic service providers, even as she charged maritime practitioners to embrace insurance.
She explained that: “I think as a nation in terms of logistics some challenges that we have had is bordered around infrastructure like roads logistics and all that, those are the areas people need to key into and the government has a large role to play in providing those infrastructure that will made the logistics a bit easier. Let me say a bit about the event this is a second edition it started last year and we participated in the last event because we see it as something that is very critical in developing the economy. In terms of trade development by commerce, logistics is a key sector that is needed to be taken into consideration. Seeing the structures of last year I think this year will be better because people will work confidently here because consistency is the key”
She also applauded the insurance sector of the economy for being up-to-date in terms of reforms that will improve the sector, even as she re-emphasised on the importance of insurance in the sector.
“Generally you cannot down play the role of insurance especially in the maritime sector that involves cargo. Anybody that has something to do with cargo you knows definitely it is a huge investment and it will not be wise for you to do that without necessary adequate insurance measures. The thing is that it will help you to plan and mitigate your risk because in every business there is always a risk aspect of it. We have quite a number of insurance companies who are into the maritime insurance. And I think to a very large extent they operate according to the global best practices so it is left for individuals and companies who have goods to ship to take out the necessary insurance policies. Especially for young and growing businesses and I am also looking at the opportunities it has to offer especially when it comes to the area of exporting by sea”, she stated.
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