PanAfrican Capital urges removal of hurdles to trade financing

THE removal of hurdles currently militating against the free-flow of trade financing in the country and the entire region has been canvassed by PanAfrican Capital Plc.

  Specifically, the investment banking company, advised the Federal Government to evolve strategies that would enthrone a regime of favourable business environment, to attract more foreign direct investments into the country.

  It noted that for a stronger economy and effective trade relations, the removal of trade hindrances for export and trade financing in Nigeria has become not only necessary, but also urgent.

 The Group Managing Director, Chris Oshiafi, who stated this in Lagos during the just concluded yearly West Africa Trade and Export Finance conference, commended efforts by the government to ensure a robust economy, but said much still need to be done by way of provision of critical infrastructure that will galvanize businesses.

  According to him, currently, constraints to export and trade financing are manifest in unfavorable policies both in export and import, asking for policy reviews to boost export, trade and financing.

  He also bemoaned the adverse effects of the devaluation of local currency against international currencies, like the United States dollar, describing this as a major issue. 

  “We have an issue with the devaluation of the naira, but that is not peculiar to Nigeria alone, as crude oil is an international commodity. Quite a number of the oil producing countries is also seeing a lot of challenges in their revenues base. But Nigeria’s case is worrisome because we have depleted our reserves and the current political terrain has not helped in creating that confidence to enable our currency to appreciate. We however, believe that after the election, there would be an improvement and that will also help trade going forward,” he said.

  Other militating factors, according to him, include unimpressive flow of direct foreign investment, poor power supply and more importantly the current security challenge in the country.

  “Security is an issue that will help people have faith in coming into Nigeria and dealing with Nigerian businessmen but these challenges are everywhere and we believe conferences like this will help bring exporters and importers together and will help develop trade going forward”, he said.  

  He noted that Pan African Capital has a unit that deals with structured finance and export credit and also has a number of clients who deals with exports, local productions and also in global trade business. 

  Oshiafi said the essence of the company’s involvement in the conference was to bring its services to Nigerian corporates, who are interested in their kind of service.

  “It’s to showcase the export credit products that are available from the stable of PanAfrican Capital to members of the exports public and also to meet with banks that also finance a number of these activities so they understand our involvement and then we will be able to work together as partners to develop global trade. 

  “We have a couple of partners who are exports credit agencies; we also have a number of development partners both across Africa and some other multinational organizations. In the last couple of years we have done close to $400million in terms of exports trade, in terms of import on behalf of our clients. So, we provide advisory agencies for most of the companies within these sectors which will require them to always ensure the growth of their businesses”, he added.