Nigeria’s earnings from non-oil exports has dropped by N52.2billion ($261million) in the second quarter of 2015 after President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has revealed.
Reports by Vanguard showed that 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 Executive Secretary of the Council, Mr. Olusegun Awolowo, made this disclosure on Thursday, November 5, 2015 during a courtesy call by the new Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd).
According to him, the drop was largely as a result of insurgency in the North East as well as the suspension of the Export Expansion Grant (EEG).
He said: “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.
“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.
Awolowo further stated that the continued rejection of products by foreign importers due to improper documentation by clearing and forwarding agents is quite challenging.
According to him, it was discovered that most exporters ran foul documentation rules and employed the services of cheap agents who do hasty jobs for them, which by extension, leads to the rejection of most products.
