By Dayo Johnson

Akure—THE Federal government yesterday tasked those seeking export facility to package bankable proposals. Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Olusegun Awolowo threw the challenge while speaking in Akure during a one-day Bankers-Exporters forum.

It also called for a single digit  interest on loans to Small and Medium Enterprises SMEs for easy accessibility. He observed that in spite of the large presence of conventional and specialized banks, access to finance still constitute a major challenge to business successes in the country.

According to him one key factor responsible for dearth of export financing is attributable to disinclination of banks to lend to exporting businesses due to inability of Small and Medium Enterprise SME exporters to provide collateral for loans .

Awolowo, who was represented by the Director, Special Duties in the commission, Olajide Ibrahim said that inadequate knowledge of export business on the part of bankers is another key factor.

“A lot of SMES are complaining that they don’t have the finance, and banks complain too that most of the proposal the SMEs are bringing to them are not attractive enough and are not bankable proposals and cannot fund them.

Speaking on the way out of the dwindling revenue in the oil sector, Awolowo said that the federal government has identified 13 non oil export to replace oil and we want to put effort behind these 13 products and categorized them into three sections to replace oil.