NEXIM boosts export activities in South West with N15bn
By As part of efforts to grow the non-oil sector of the economy, the Nigerian Export Import Bank (NEXIM) has extended support to the tune of over N15 billion disbursement to exporters in the South West region, to boost export activities.
Stella Okotete, executive director, business development, NEXIM, made this known during a facility tour of some of the recipients of the funds in Lagos.
Okotete said the disbursements is to let everyone see that non oil export is growing and NEXIM is meeting its mandate of increasing the contributions of non oil to the Gross Domestic Product of Nigeria.
Nigeria was said to lag behind a number of countries in non-oil export earnings as Africa’s biggest economy faces poor infrastructure slump that continues to hurt local manufacturers.
She was concerned about the state of the Apapa road, saying that “the Apapa road is imitating against the progress in the non-oil export. The number of truck on the road is increasing the turnaround time from 90 days to 180 days, thereby reducing revenue contribution from that sector.
“We have an office in Calabar and we expect that we should reduce the traffic of everything coming to Lagos port, Okotete said.”
On the need to increase the bank’s intervention from the average of N1.5 billion disbursed, she said, “Because they are new on our books, we wanted to see capacity and coming here today, we have seen that they have the capacity and they will get more.
“One of them told us that he has done $38 million transactions in 2018 and that is enough reason Tom increase what he gets by reducing his interest burden and increase his export.”
Madhukar Khetan, Chief Operating Officer of Dufil Premier foods, who spoke at the presentation of N1.5 billion to the company, said: “the fund will help to stimulate our production and export performance.
“We are currently doing N900 million worth of export monthly and N10 billion annually, with 20,000 direct and indirect employment, Khetan, said.”
Adeyemi Adeniji, Chief Executive Officer of Starlink, who’s company got N10 billion said he lost 505 tonnes of cocoa produce on transit from his warehouse to the Apapa port barely 10 kilometre away.
“The nightmare in Apapa is shrinking our business. In 2016, we did 65,000 tonnes of cocoa export. In 2017, 53,000 tonnes and in 2018, 11 months down the line, we have only managed 30, 000 tonnes,” he added.