SMALL and Medium Enterprises, SMEs, involved in non-oil exports now have a cause to cheer, as plans are underway to establish a Pre-shipment Incentive Grants that would stimulate activities in the sector and boost the country’s non-oil exports.

Executive Director/CEO of Nigerian Export Promotion Council, NEPC, Mr. Olusegun Awolowo, who made the disclosure while receiving the Chief of Party, USAID/Nigeria Expanded Trade and Transport, NEXTT, Mr. Alf Monaghan, in his office at Abuja, observed that over the years, the council had focused more on administering post-shipment incentives, especially the Export Expansion Grant, EEG.

He said efforts were now geared towards providing investment opportunities in the sector for SMEs that would guarantee employment and wealth creation through the Export Development Fund, EDF, which is a pre-shipment grant to boost exports.

“Given the huge population of Nigerians in some major cities like Johannesburg, London, Atlanta Georgia and Houston Texas, the council intends to promote the creation of Nigerian towns in these cities to facilitate the export of local products and foods by Nigerian entrepreneurs,” he said.
On his part, Mr. Monaghan implored the council to open up trade offices in some countries, which are major importers of Nigeria’s products as it would help facilitate trade between such countries and Nigeria.

He noted that part of the problem of promoting Nigerian exports abroad was inadequate funding of Nigerian embassies and high commissions to drive the trade and investment programmes of government, coupled with the fact that the commercial attaches were not sufficiently trained to handle trade and investment matters as they were more concerned with political and diplomatic issues.

Awolowo, responding, said that plans were underway to establish regional trade and investment offices in some major cities of the world, including Brazil, London, United States of America, USA, and the Middle East.