The Federal Government of Nigeria has disbursed N50billion Export Development Fund to Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and stakeholders within the export value chain to boost non-oil exports, the Executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, Ezra Yakusak, has said.
Yakusak said this at a programme in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, where he was represented by NEPC Deputy Director, Policy and Strategy, Akintunde Folorunso.
He stated that the Federal Government, through the Export Expansion Facility Programme, was supporting and facilitating SME exporters’ access to the export market.
“The EEFP is a Federal Government Economic Sustainability Plan to stimulate non-oil export, safeguard jobs and protect businesses from the adverse effect of COVID-19 pandemic which is also in line with the objectives of National Committee on Export Promotion in the implementation of zero oil plan,” he said.
Yakusak said it was the NEPC desire “to nurture our exporters through several capacity strengthening programmes and competency development to provide them with technical information on the AfCFTA as a prerequisite to preparing them for the export market”.
Folorunso, who was also a resource person at the workshop, listed beneficiaries of the N50billion facility to include MSMEs that are just going into the export business but are registered; performing exporters; and operators of domestic export warehouses, among others.
He said the government was producing logistic services, and providing vessels that will be moving across the African coasts to deliver goods from one African country to the other.
This, he said, was in a bid to solve the difficulty in trade among African countries owing to the lack of vessels that could move goods across West African and African coasts.
The Ekiti State Commissioner for Investment, Trade and Industries, Muyiwa Olumilua, who hailed NEPC for the workshop, said, “It would expose the MSME operators to the underlying principles, objectives, benefits and the market access criteria of ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme and AfCFTA agreement.”