The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has urged exporters operating on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to take advantage of the numerous benefits that accrue to free trade business agreement the country signed with the West African sub region and the African continent at large.
Deputy Director of NEPC, Uyo Export Assistance Office, Mrs Pauline Ndulaka, stated this during a sensitisation on Export Competency Development to Enhance MSMEs Success in ECOWAS and AFCFTA, organised by its Policy and Strategy Department, Abuja, Tuesday in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state capital.
She said the country’s business treaties which are ECOWAS Trade Liberation Scheme (ETLS) and African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA) have opened up exporters’ doors to the world’s largest market recognised by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Ndulaka said ETLS is “aimed at expanding the volume of intra-community trade in the sub region through the removal of both tariff and non tariff barriers to trade on products originating from ECOWAS countries.”
She also stated that AfCFTA is “aimed at removing tariffs on intra-African trade which is an agreement for a single market by accelerating and boosting Africa’s trading position in the global market with the strength of a common voice and policy space in global trade negotiations.”
She advised all exporters to diversify their export base by exporting more of value added products so as to penetrate the free trade areas across Africa.
Meanwhile, the executive director and chief executive officer of NEPC, Mr Olusegun Awolowo, had commended the MSMEs participants for turning up in numbers for the sensitisation.
Awolowo, represented by the deputy director, Policy and Strategy, Mr Akintunde Folorunso, urged all exporters to explore the largest market in the world with over two billion people which the country has opened up.
