Export trade through the nation’s seaports have recorded an increase by 3.5 million metric tonnes (MT) in the first half of the year 2023.
Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Mr. Mohammed Bello-Koko, disclosed this during a panel discussion on export of non-oil products at the 2023 Zenith Bank International Trade Seminar, which held in Lagos.
The NPA MD further disclosed plans by the authority working closely with other government agencies such as the Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigerian Shippers’ Council and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) to ensure imports and exports are cleared faster, as a measure to ensuring improved trade facilitation.
Although a major setback has been blockages truckers face in lifting export containers from the warehouses to the ports, which cause delays, the issue of cargo clearance process is one on the front burner too.
Speaking, Bello-Koko urged the Customs to ensure a reduction in the time of cargo clearance processes at the ports.
He said that the NPA had recorded significant growth in export numbers at the ports since 2019, from about 2.8 million metric tonnes to 3.8 million metric tonnes in 2020; export volume, Bello-Koko said, grew in 2021 to 3.79 million metric tonnes and over 5.1 million metric tonnes in 2022.
The NPA boss said the collaboration with the Nigeria Customs Service helped the Authority in the accomplishment. He also expressed hope of greater achievement.
“NPA’s responsibility is to handle the logistics issue as relates to the delivery of cargo to ports, reviewing the cargo and also ensuring that it is loaded for the voyage. We encouraged the terminal operators to create hinterland aggregation points and dedicated spaces for export within the port terminals, but we need to realise that the ports are very small and therefore there are capacity issues.
“What we did was to create export processing terminals and the export processing terminals are one-stop shops where you consolidate, test, weigh, and pack it and then go straight into the ports. What the customs did for us is to create an export command. This means there are individuals responsible for all export problems that you can relate with,” he said.
He said the NPA also created time belts for exports and a lane for export to improve the speed of moving exports to the port.
The NPA boss said Lagos State Government has been working with them to enforce traffic regulations, especially along the port corridors, which helped to reduce congestion.
He added that the efforts yielded results and facilitated the growth of exports leaving Nigerian ports.
“Don’t forget that shipping activities pick from the middle of the year, so you can perceive that we are going to achieve more than what we got last year,” he added.
Confirming the growth in export trade, Executive Director of the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Ezra Yakusak, said Nigeria had a non-oil export performance of $4.8 billion in 2022, which is the largest since the creation of NEPC in 1976.
“We exported 214 products which mean that Nigeria has huge potential. About 1,122 companies exported to 122 countries. Last year, there was an increase of about 39.6 per cent in the export of manufactured products, meaning that Nigerian export is changing from being mostly raw materials to becoming processed or manufactured products,” he said.
Speaking also, acting Comptroller General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, said the service has created a one-stop-shop that removes all delays that leads to the rejection of Nigerian export in the international markets.
The discussions indicate remarkable improvement in efforts to grow export trade notwithstanding the rejections that some of Nigeria’s agricultural products had faced in the international markets.
With additional information from the Guardian Newspaper.
