Nigeria's Federal Government has reiterated its resolve to partner with the private sector to make the country take full advantage of Africa Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA), which can attract N20 million annually through the export of agricultural products.

The special Adviser to the President on the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), Mrs Modupe Sasore, who made this declaration on Wednesday in Lagos at this year's seminar of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Trade Group of the LCCL said: "the government is repositioning AGOA for the private sector to participate to make it result oriented."

While calling on the private sector to brace itself up for the challenges of AGOA by producing quality products, Sasore said: "in the Nigerian business environment accessibility to fund at affordable bank rate, unavailability of market access in the U.S and quantity guranteed remain the major challenges."

According to her, while the federal government is encouraging the private sector to take the lead, it is adopting various measures and programmes in building and strengthening capacities such as the establishment of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEAAN).

The others are the expansion of the standardisation and quality control programme to include SMEs, the establishment of the Bank of Industry (BOI) and the Small and medium Industries Equity Investment Scheme (SMIEIS).

The president of the Lagos chamber of commerce and industry (LCCI), Chief John Odeyemi, noted that the SMEs groups had developed Nigerian economy over the years.

He therefore, said that until the country responded to mobilise the grassroots effectively for economic development "we have not yet started."

He advised that the programme would only succeed if all the agencies such as SMEOAN collborated with the AGOA to fast track the alleviation of poverty in the country.

The chairman of the SMES Trade Group, Chief Tutu Osoba, said the objective of the group was to advance and protect the business interest of its members as well as promote commerce and industry within the context of the over all interest of the country.

He said the theme of the seminar "SMEs in Nigeria and the AGOA challange" was highly significant and important to Nigerian investors and the Nigerian economy as a whole.

The federal government had in reponse to the importance of AGOA enacted in May 2003, Customs and Excise Act of section 57 to enable Nigeria take full advantage of the programme.

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