Nigeria: Non-oil exporters can generate more forex through AGOA, says NEPC
The Nigerian Export Promotion Council, NEPC, has charged non-oil exporters to maximise the full potential of African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), saying it will help the Federal Government in achieving its diversification goal and improve the economy.
Speaking at an interactive session with non-oil exporters in Lagos, the NEPC Regional Coordinator, South West, Mr. Babatunde Faleke said the best to grow naira was to improve on the volume of non-oil exports in with AGOA offer more opportunity in term of profit.
Faleke said: “AGOA is a United States Law that was established in 2000 to provide a duty-free platform for African countries to export into the US.
In 2015, the platform was extended by 10 more years to enable more exporters benefit from the opportunity.” He regretting that many African countries are benefiting from the AGOA platform more than Nigeria, he said: “Exporters that are not exporting through AGOA are cheating themselves. We urge more exporters to stop complaining and seek for assistance on how to go about it.”
We admit that during the first tenure of AGOA, Nigeria did not do well at all in exporting under the platform, but now the difference is getting better.” “This is why the NEPC has been engaging exporters and stakeholders themselves on the major challenges they have been facing in exporting both within and outside AGOA.
Today we have been able to see that lack of information, lack of adequate warehousing abroad, and the inability of Nigerians to meet up with the quantity demanded from foreign buyers are some of the major challenges,” Faleke said.