The Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Dr Abubarkar Dantsoho, has disclosed that exports out of Nigeria increased by over 25 per cent in the last two years as a result of the federal government’s policies.
Dantsoho stated this while speaking at the ongoing Annual World Ports Conference in London, organised by the International Association of Ports and Harbours (IAPH). According to him, Nigeria’s population gives it immense advantage among its peers in West and Central Africa adding that recent reforms has also massively increased cargo throughputs.
His words, “So for us in Nigeria, the most important thing is that we are seeing growth as a result of this policy that we are taking. Statistically, the exports from Nigeria in the last two years has increased by 25% And then these are exports that are not mainly only oil and gas, in terms of oil and gas like I mentioned, we are doing fantastically around that, but then also in the other areas of manufacturing and agriculture, you know, raw materials like cocoa, like cashew and all that. Volumes have increased and that this is to the credit of the partnership that we have between ourselves and the major terminal operators APM Terminals.”
Dantsoho said that the NPA has everything in place to sustain the growth in exports adding that it was the reason it set up the Export Processing Terminal.
“We have got about four of those in Nigeria where we collaborate with the terminal operators, with the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), and other agencies that have a stake. So that everything regarding the processing of the cargo for export is done locally, so that by the time it is exported out of Nigeria, there will not be issues regarding standards,” he added. He said Nigeria is better placed today to take advantage of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCTA) as a result of the reforms of the present administration.
“Nigeria’s economy is very strong now because of our president’s reforms, which everyone can testify is attracting investors to the country. So because of that, we are leading other African countries to ensure that we export or trade within ourselves in a free and fair manner. So between, for example, Nigeria and Morocco, there’s a lot of exchange of idea because Morocco is now a hub for manufacturing of electric cars and other smaller cars,” he added.
The reforms, he added, was the reason why Nigeria had two ports in the top 20 in the latest global ports ranking by the World Bank. The NPA boss affirmed, “This is the result of hard work and efficiency, because we are collaborating efficiently. And so we have identified that this is getting us a lot of good results. It’s result-oriented, it’s technology-based. So we are going to continue to consolidate on the relationship we have with major players in Morocco and South Africa.”
He revealed that as a result of the reforms, revenue from ports across Nigeria have quadrupled. “We have experienced a lot of increase in volumes and revenue that has been generated by the ports across Nigeria, and it is strictly because of the collaboration between us and other countries. As a matter of fact, the efficiency in the ports in Nigeria is far better now than those of other West African countries.
“I am saying this because as the president of Association of Ports in West and Central Africa, we have the same dashboard to know the performance of other ports in the regions. There has also been improvement in Tanzania and Kenya.
“So it’s a very good feeling that this collaboration is getting us the desired results and we have to consolidate and also make sure that we progress on time so that we don’t allow the detraction to begin to slow us down. He said the federal government in planning for the medium to long term is investing $1 billion to expand and modernise the Apapa ports.
“So expansion and modernisation of infrastructure requires that we collaborate with private sector people. And in that area, like I said, we are working with APMT, we are working with other bigger players who have got the capital. But this is a project that requires a lot of investment. You have to put a lot of money to be able to do that. We are also working with some partners to develop our technology. So for example, in recent times, like a year ago, we had a partnership with a firm from Singapore.
“We have developed a simple window system. And right now, we are also working with the with another company from Abu Dhabi to develop the port community system. It is not only us partnering with the private sector, there’s also in the private sector, business-to-business relationship,” he said.
