Government begins review of export expansion grant

…Non-oil export hits $3 billion

Even as the Export Expansion Grant (EEG) undergoing review by the federal government, the Executive Director, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Segun Awolowo, has said that the non-oil export has increased from $600 million to $3 billion.

According to him, the suspension on EEG would soon be over stating that the grant have been reworked holistically by the council to lower its threshold.

At the stage it is now, it has passed through two ministries: Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment and Finance.

The ministries are to take it to the Federal Executive Council to ratify for disbursement of incentives.

Speaking at the inauguration of an initiative by the council, profiled, Zero2Export, in Lagos, Awolowo said, an impact assessment have been carried out on the grant and would begin to give non-oil exporters 30 per cent incentives as soon as the suspension is over.

However, the initiative, which is in partnership with Fidelity Bank Plc, is aimed at training individuals and corporate bodies on non-oil export products with information, toolkits and other facilities needed to explore market opportunities.

The programme already has four batches trained in agro-export commodity and processing value added export, as the first batch has done a cumulative export of about $16,000, the second batch with a cumulative export of about $23,500, while the same second batch has exported 12 tonnes of Hibiscus flowers to Mexico and Ukraine.

Awolowo described the initiative has an integral part of pre-export incentives tailored at equipping potential exporters with the requisite knowledge and practical skills needed to enhance their competitiveness in the market place.

He explained that the importance of the partnership with Fidelity Bank on the Zero2Export project cannot be over emphasised, adding that the partnership would ensure regularity of the project in such a scale that would enhance the much-needed capacity building required for export business according to international best practices.

Also, the Managing Director, Fidelity Bank Plc, Nnamdi Okonkwo, said that the programme would help people and Nigeria as a country come out of the quagmire they currently found themselves.

According to him, the bank would be offering a single digit interest rate for loans granted within three years while loans above three years would be double digits.

“What we are doing is focusing on capacity development to help people learn from mistakes of others and do export properly to earn international respectability.

Speaking further, Okonkwo said` as part of our commitment to contribute to the growth of the Nigerian economy, we are collaborating with Lagos Business School (LBS) to establish the Export Management and Export Leadership Institute as a flagship export capacity development programme.

He added: there is need to reposition the non-oil export sector, which could play significant roles in diversifying Nigeria’s monolithic economy, now that the government is pushing everybody to do something productive to earn Nigeria foreign exchange rather than continuing to spend.