EditorMinister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, has explained why many other countries continue to reject exports from Nigeria.
While lamenting on this development, the Minister said that the quality of products from the country, especially agricultural products, failed to meet the export standards of these countries.
Onyeama disclosed this at a meeting with the Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Olusegun Awolowo, in Abuja over the weekend.
According to Mr Onyeama, “the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a comparative and unique advantage to be physically present in over 100 countries in the world. Now, this represents truly a unique opportunity to leverage that presence to export and trade our goods.”
He said several countries do not have the kind of natural resources that Nigeria has, yet through trade, transformed their societies and have become major economic powers.
“In engaging with some countries, we have seen that, especially in the agriculture sector, the phytosanitary aspect is important. We are being denied market access into a lot of countries because of the quality of the products. And this is costing us huge resources. So I think that your agency (NEPC) also has a lot of work to do.”
Also, the Minister said the Federal Government would focus on strengthening economic diplomacy and ensure Nigeria benefits from countries with mutual interests.
The NEPC boss, Mr Awolowo, expressed confidence the Federal Government efforts would help the agency realize $30 billion from non-oil export by 2025.
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