IATF Roadshow: Experts canvass production, manufacturing to enhance regional trade

APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
Some experts and stakeholders in international business have stressed the need to increase Nigeria’s productive and manufacturing capacity in order facilitate trade, improve foreign exchange inflows and engender competitiveness under the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
One of the experts, Mr Intong Eric Monchu, Regional Chief Operating Officer, Anglophone West Africa, Afreximbank, who spoke at a panel session of the 2023 Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF2023) Roadshow Nigeria with the theme: “Growing Intra-African Trade amidst Increasing Regional and Global Geopolitical Challenges” on Monday in Lagos, stated that AfCFTA’s implementation remained a critical arrowhead of the bank’s strategy to drive Africa’s economic integration.
Monchu noted that the African continent is blessed with abundant natural resources and that Intra-African trade level is pegged at 18 per cent, which is low value when compared with that of Europe and Asia.
He said that Nigeria’s export of raw commodities should be discontinued and that the Afreximbank was committed to providing solutions tailored towards facilitating trade across the continent.
According to him, Nigerians should drive intra African trade because they have what it takes in the way they think, reason, drive, aggressiveness to move Intra-African trade.
“We must, therefore, stop being last in terms of trade while Afreximbank works to promote special economic zones, industrial parks with states and countries across the continent,” he said.
Another speaker, Mr. Mansur Ahmed, who was a former President of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), observed that the real cause of Africa’s failure was the inability to keep up with its productive and manufacturing capacity.
Ahmed said that Nigeria should focus on trading on manufactured goods, producing what is needed for consumption locally and for export.
He lauded Afreximbank for its efforts at creating financing systems and urged the bank to focus on promoting manufacturing in Africa.
In his contribution, Mr Olukayode Pitan, Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BOI), identified lack of adequate diversification as one of the challenges affecting the Nigerian economy.
Pitan, who was represented by Mr Leonard Kange, Divisional Head, Corporate, BOI, stressed the need to diversify the country’s revenue sources to mitigate the volatility of depending on the sale of crude oil.
He explained that there are opportunities to earn foreign exchange from manufacturing of motor spare parts and cars, iron and steel, plastics, textile, energy and agriculture, which run into billions of dollars.
“As it is, Nigeria is exporting money and importing poverty and so it has become very important to support and develop our industrial base to drive economic growth and development.
“With the opportunities in manufacturing, it is glaring that the market is there and so we must do what is needed to take advantage of this market to begin to earn the much needed foreign exchange,” he said.
Speaking on the interventions of the regional bank, Mr Emeka Uzomba, Senior Advisor, AfCFTA, Afreximbank, described AfCFTA as the most developmental tool for Africa and urged the private sector to organise themselves to harness its opportunities.
He said that some of the bank’s intervention tools included financing and equity risks to support development of industrial parks and special economic zones across Africa.
He pledged the bank’s support to providing more interventions tailored to drive MSME participation and growth under the AfCFTA.
According to local media reports on Tuesday, the IATF2023 is scheduled to hold from November 9 to 15 in Cairo, Egypt and it is being organised by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), African Union Commission and the AfCFTA Secretariat as a platform for businesses to access an integrated African market of over 1.3 billion people with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of over $3.5 trillion created under the AfCFTA.
GIK/APA