Nigeria’s non-oil exports earnings have dropped by $261million (N52.2billion) in the second quarter of this year, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council has said.
According to the council, the country’s non-oil export dipped to N78.2bn ($391m) in the second quarter of 2015 from N130.4bn ($652m) recorded in the second quarter of 2014, representing 39.25 per cent decrease.
The figures were disclosed in Abuja yesterday by the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Olusegun Awolowo, during a courtesy call on the Council by the new Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Hameed Ali
Awolowo attributed the slump in non-oil export revenue earning to the suspension of the Export Expansion Grant (EEG) and the insurgence in the North East. “The situation is compounded with the non payment of the Export Expansion Grant (EEG) and the insurgency in the North East which is the agricultural basket of the nation.”
He said, “The nation is not only losing on the economic front, the lull in the non-oil export is also affecting the capacity of the manufacturing sector to employ, lamenting that in the period under review, the nation lost 50 per cent of its labour force.
“The country has taken a dip of 60 per cent in oil revenue. For any country across the world, it is huge. However, the challenges we are having in the oil sector are also affecting the value of our non-oil export. One of the challenges is the continued rejection of products by foreign importers, which he noted was due to improper documentation by clearing and forwarding agents.”
Awolowo stated that an inquiry into some of the causes of products rejection revealed that most exporters ran foul of documentation rules adding that exporters employed the services of cheap agents who do hasty jobs for them.
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