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The manufacturing exporters, under the aegis of the Manufacturers Association of  Nigeria Export Promotion Group (MANEG), have called on the Federal Government to establish an inter-country and  regional railway networks to reduce the high cost and delays in the movement of goods across the borders.

Speaking at an interactive session between the group and the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), in Lagos, recently,   its Chairman, Mr Tunde Oyelola, identified logistics and transportation as a major challenge facing members of the group, noting that the hassle of numerous road blocks had continued to strangulate intra-ECOWAS trade.

The group, therefore, called on the Federal Government to work with ECOWAS Commission and other member states for timely and effective implementation of the regional railway project to enable export trade flourish in the country.

Mr Oyelola expressed the group’s reservation on the suspended Export Expansion Grant (EEG) by the Federal Government, adding that the uncertainty in the EEG scheme had begun to take its toll on the performance of non-oil exports.

“After the introduction of EEG Scheme, Nigerian non-oil export grew from $600million to $2bn  between 2006 and 2012 while the 2013 export value was about $3.6billion, an indication that the potential of EEG contribution to export growth is very huge,” he stated.

The MANEG chairman, therefore, called on the Federal Government to exercise caution with the ongoing suspension of the scheme and the proposed review, adding that the result of a policy reversal could ultimately become a disincentive for current and potential exporters.

“EEG is government’s investment to stimulate the non-oil exports and with the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that may soon come on board, government needs to invest more in the non-oil exports to encourage manufactured exports or else, we will just open our market for the Europeans and Nigerian manufacturers will be at a disadvantage,” he stated.

 In his remarks, the Executive Director of NEPC, Mr. Segun Awolowo stated that as a result of the Council’s activities with other agencies of government associated with the promotion of non-oil export, the country had recorded a slight increase in the performance of non-oil export in 2013, with a total value of $2.9b as against the previous year’s record of N2.5b.

 According to him, non-oil export to ECOWAS countries had also recorded remarkable improvement by 20 Percent in 2013, with a total export value of $375million as against $312m and $276m in 2012 and 2011 respectively.

Source-On Request