The Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Export Promotion Council, Dr. Ezra Yakusak, has said Nigeria’s non-oil export sector performance in the first six months of 2022 was $2.6bn.
He expressed the Federal Government’s commitment to initiation of various programmes and projects to stimulate the non-oil export sector of the economy with a view to developing it.
‘NEPC would not relent on its oars to ensure that every segment of the society is carried along in a bid to develop non-oil export in the country,” he said.
The Chief Executive Officer, represented by the Assistant Director, NEPC National Export Office, Olu Ikulajolu, spoke in Ado Ekiti during a two-day Export hand-holding programme organised by NEPC for youth entrepreneurs in Ekiti State.
He urged youths to increase their participation in the Federal Government’s economic diversification agenda for sustainable and inclusive economic growth.
NEPC, he said, had initiated programmes including One State One Product; opened Export Trade House in Egypt, Nairobi and Togo; SHETRADE Desk for Women in Export; and Youth Export Development programme all geared towards facilitating export.
“It will interest you to note that the non-oil export performance in the first half of 2022 was put at about $2.6bn representing increase of 62.37 per cent compared with N1.60bn recorded during the same period in 2012,” Yakusak said.
The Trade Promotion Advisor, NEPC Ekiti Export Assistance Office, Mrs Iyabode Abe, said the workshop was to, among others, “Provide platform to encourage youths to participate in the global market to create employment and boost non-oil export trade.”
Abe, who said that the council would be unrelenting in discharging its responsibility of promoting development of non-oil export in Nigeria, urged participants, youths and unemployed graduates to tap into the opportunities that abound in the non-oil export value chain.
She listed NEPC programmes to create awareness on the development of the non-oil export sector in Ekiti State including a consultative forum on the development of bananas for export, capacity building on good agricultural practices for improved quality cocoa production and training workshops for SMEs, women entrepreneurs, fish farmers and youths on export logistics.