Nigeria has been urged to capitalise on and explore its comparative edge in spices by supporting local farmers as the global market for the commodities is projected to reach $21 billion by 2024.
Trade policy expert, Dr. Olumuyiwa Alaba, gave the charge at the first virtual non-oil exporters’ dialogue with the theme ‘Addressing Barriers to Foreign Market Access’ organised by the Policy Development Facility (PDF) bridge programme with the aim to address barriers to foreign market access.
Dr. Olumuyiwa, who moderated the dialogue, explained that a study was conducted on market access analysis in relation to herbs, textile and leather products.
According to him, with over 523,000 metric tonnes produced yearly, Nigeria was the sixth largest exporter of ginger in the world in 2018.
He said the study showed that other spices, herbs and nuts held a huge export trade opportunity for the country, adding that Nigeria accounted for 70 per cent of world output of kola nut based on data by Integrated Kola nut Producers, Marketers and Exporters Association of Nigeria.
While suggesting an urgent need to empower more farmers to explore the sector for expansion to benefit the export market, he noted that the study found out that exporters and farmers’ challenges of getting certification from the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) remained daunting, as well as painful logistic challenges and fulfilling export supervision scheme, among others.
The Director General of the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), Dr. Williams Isegbe, said cooperatives must be formed to ensure that regulatory standards were complied with, noting that the absence of self-regulation had created the erroneous impression among exporters that regulatory bodies were strict and over-bearing.
The Chairman of the Leather Products Manufacturers Association (LEPMAAS) in Abia State, Okechukwu Williams, said a lot needed to be done by both government and the private sector to make leather producers in the country compete favourably in the global market.
The founder of Le Look Nigeria Limited, Chinwe Ezenwa, who urged government to declare state of emergency on export trade, said government should boost the study, practice and entrepreneurial skills of textile and garment manufacturers at technical colleges and also key into the 10-year expansion of the African Growth and Development Act (AGOA).
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