The Nigerian Export Promotion Council, NEPC, has began the process of preparing Nigerian exporters and businesses for onboarding to the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement’s guided trade initiatives.
It is hopeful this will help give them access to major markets across the continent.
Though the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement became operational in January 2021, commercially meaningful trade between participating nations under the trade pact has yet to begin.
The AfCFTA Secretariat therefore put in place a solution based approach known as the guided trade initiative to matchmake businesses and products for export and import between interested state parties in coordination with their national AfCFTA implementation committees.
The NEPC is now getting local businesses and exporters ready for onboarding unto the guided trade initiative as a means of contributing its quota to enhancing access to markets across the continent through the AfCFTA.
Nigeria becoming a dumping ground was one of the fears that greeted Nigeria’s signing of the trade agreement in 2019 , as many worried the country will be unable to produce adequate volume of finished goods for exports.
The authorities however assured that it would put in place modalities to prevent such.
These efforts by the NEPC towards driving local industry participation in the trade deal is to improve their access to major markets.
ECOWAS member nations and other countries on the continent do not constitute the top ten importers of Nigerian commodities .
A trend the NEPC finds worrisome and it pledges commitment to changing this narrative through several initiatives including the establishment of export houses across the continent, to further boost export integration.
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