ABUJA: The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Nigeria Expanded Trade and Transport (NEXTT) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that aims at establishing a collaborative development partnership for the delivery of technical assistance and capacity for Nigerian Exporters and Business Development Service Providers (BDSP).
The groundbreaking partnership was endorsed by the USAID Director of Mission, Michael Harvey, the Executive Director/ CEO of NEPC Mr. Olusegun Awolowo and the USAID/NXTT, Chief of Party, Mr. Alf Monaghan, in Abuja, recently.
Under the MoU, USAID and NEPC would evolve export development strategies for priority value chains that would result in increased export of agricultural products including cocoa, shea, cashew, sesame and processed agricultural products.
A statement obtained by our correspondent from the zonal office of NEPC in Port Harcourt, states that through a jointly sponsored training under NEXTT, export-ready firms would be supported to exploit export opportunities in targeted value chains in targeted importing nations.
The partnership, according to the document, would also provide technical and capacity building support to network of Business Development Service (BDS) providers serving non-oil firms.
According to the USAID/Nigeria Mission Director, Mr. Harvey, USAID was very pleased to collaborate with NEPC to drive the country’s economy through exports.
On his part, the NEPC boss recounted that Nigeria was losing as much as approximately $12 billion revenue due to informal trade in Africa alone, whereas the country was making a paltry $3 billion from other parts of the world formally.
Commenting on the significance of the MoU, the Managing Director of NEXTT Bank, Mr. Robert Orya said that NEXIN has always worked on developing the Ecowas market to become a traditional selling place for Nigerian exporters.
