Agencies of government involved in the exportation of cargo products have been told to ease the processes in order to create room for the growth of the sector and increase revenue generation for the country.
The Managing Director of Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Mr Abba Bello, who gave the advice during the visit of the Avia-Cargo Committee to his office in Abuja, lamented how the bottlenecks among the government agencies had led to low contribution of Nigeria to cargo export in Africa.
Nigeria, with its arrays of resources, Bello said, should be among the leading exporting nations on the Africa continent.
According to him, while cargo planes arrive in Nigeria with goods, they depart the shores of the country almost empty, while adding that with synergy among the agencies, cargo exportation’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would enhance.
Expressing the willingness of NEXIM to finance cargo export in the country if standards and specifications are adhered to by all, Bello maintained that as logistics are developed in other modes of transportation for cargo purposes, it was also necessary for aviation cargo to be developed, especially for perishable goods.
“Our duty at NEXIM is to promote export of Nigerian goods to the global market. We are also to provide financing for exporters either in foreign or local currencies.
“But, we feel sad that while cargo planes land in Nigeria with goods, they depart empty and this is an area that we really need to look into as a nation. As we are developing logistics in other places like marine and road, we also need to look at aviation and we should find out why it is difficult to do shipment by air.
“We need to ease the process of cargo exports among the various government agencies. We should also decentralise our operations for cargo. We should identify where we have different agro cargo production and establish facilities for them there.”
In his remarks, the acting Regional General Manager, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, Dr Adamu Adamu, advised the Avia-Cargo Committee to put in place frameworks that would lead to improved revenue for FAAN through cargo.
He lamented that despite the rich agricultural produce out of Nigeria, most of the farm produce rot away due to lack of preservation facilities and enlightenment on standards and specifications.
Adamu expressed delight at the involvement of numerous government agencies by the committee, including Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigerian Quarantine and the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), among others.
The National Coordinator of the Avia-Cargo Committee, Mr Ikechi Uko, noted that Nigeria was still ranked fifth among countries with highest exporter of agric produce in Africa.
He explained that the essence of the visit to NEXIM was to collaborate with the financial institution on how it could finance cargo export in the country.
Uko said, “We produce a lot of things, 53 million tonnes of yam, Ghana produces only eight million tonnes, but Nigeria doesn’t export yam. Ghana exports our yams and for a lot of things they export on our behalf, they put it as produce of Ghana but we bring it from Nigeria and export.
“We have not been able to do that because we have not put in place a system that will adequately take care of the things that we produce. We produce a lot of things in this country but we are not able to sell.”
In other to grow avia-cargo, he noted that about three weeks ago, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) had secured a 27,000 square meters as cargo village that would serve as processing, packaging, certification, laboratory services and data gathering for traceability of agricultural products.
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