The National Association of Nigerian Traders (NANTS), on Wednesday in Abuja said that advocacy can be used as a robust instrument for trade facilitation.
The President of NANTS, Dr Ken Ukoha, said this at a two-day workshop on trade facilitation advocacy for 35 participants drawn from government agencies and organisations in West Africa.
Ukoha said that the training sought to equip the participants with effective advocacy tools and skills to influence policies on trade facilitation.
According to him, the workshop is also aimed at strengthening the voices of the representatives of various Ministries, Departments and Agencies and organisations within West Africa in the dialogue and engagement for trade facilitation.
While identifying trade as the largest revenue generator for Nigeria aside oil, Ukoha said there was the need to build the capacity of a team that would help build the country’s economy through trade facilitation.
“If you are talking about revenue generation which holds the nation it is trade
“Today, apart from oil, the largest revenue generator to our country and many other countries is trade.
“And this comes from revenue generated through tariff, duties paid at the ports and revenue generated through exports as well.
“This trickles down the incomes of individual producers, weather they are manufacturers or even the traders themselves who are the purveyors at the local level in the markets that you see at their individual shops.
“Or at the cross border end where you have trade facilitation as a subject that becomes very key and monumental.
“That is why the Wold Bank, GIZ, European Union, USAID, the Government of Netherlands and the Nigerian government came together to underscore the importance of getting people improve their knowledge on this,’’ he said.
According to him, if we do not review our knowledge capacity, there is no way we can build that knowledge in the poor woman trader out there.
“So, that necessitated the need to build the capacity of 35 organisations selected on the subject of trade instruments,’’ Ukoha said.
He said that the workshop would be used to demystify some of the jargons in trade
“Lets see how we can come down with these instruments and the level we can understand so we can also transport that knowledge to others in our organisations.
“The reason why we are doing this is because poverty is increasing in our land.
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“Globally, there is crisis everywhere; it is either insecurity or war or food prices that are going high, increase in squalor and displacements here and there.
“People are dying and if you have travelled you will understand that this is not just peculiar to Nigeria alone.
“Today, donors have reduced their funding in terms of donation and grants. You can see that those lines are shrinking because it is no longer easy for many of them.
“Therefore, we must resort to some of those things that will help us all through to repackage ourselves and rediscover ourselves as a nation.
“We must look at what we have and see how we can manage resources, refine export and make sure that we have revenue into our pocket.
“And that is what we call wealth creation and at the end of that wealth creation is trade,’’ Ukoha said.
(NAN)
