The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), the forerunner of exportation and other related activities in Nigeria has continued to expand the growth of exportation, especially through recent developments. Since its establishment in 1976, the NEPC’s mandate has been towards promoting non-oil exports and diversifying Nigeria’s economy. This includes activities for coordinating and harmonising export development and promotion activities, leading national
export programs, interfacing with international trade agencies, creating appropriate export incentives, and promoting the implementation of export.
In upholding its mandate, the NEPC has been faced by several challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, complex regulatory frameworks, poor access to finance, inconsistent government policies, lack of export diversification, limited market information, high cost of production, insecurity, and a shortage of skilled manpower. These try to clog the council’s ability to effectively promote non-oil exports in Nigeria.
Irrespective of these challenges, the NEPC under Nonye Ayeni’s leadership continues to contribute a huge quota to Nigeria’s economic growth through innovative and diverse export promotion strategies. The Council has successfully tackled its limitations while advancing its vision. It has impressively influenced quality control and packaging, capacity building programs, logistics and supply chain improvement, market access and diversification, supporting SMEs to
enhance their export capabilities, provision of domestic export warehousing (DEW) for storing goods to be exported, collaboration with stakeholders, etc.
Nonye Ayeni has been spearheading the mandate of the NEPC since her appointment as the Executive Director/CEO on 13th October, 2023. Prior to this role, she held the position of General Manager at Zenith Bank PLC, overseeing a wide array of Divisions after which she served as Deputy Managing Director at Funds and Electronic Transfer Solutions Limited (FETS) and as an Independent Non-Executive Director at the FMDQ Exchange until September 2022. From these former positions, Mrs. Ayeni gathered stature in International and Domestic Operations, Payments, General Management, Business Development, Risk Management, Customer Satisfaction, Human Resources, and Strategy; a wealth of experience which she has wholeheartedly brought to her role within the NEPC.
Immediately after her appointment by the presidency, Nonye Ayeni took to her social media platforms to express her enthusiasm about undertaking the responsibilities involved. Being a stickler for superior performance and excellence, she continues to work tirelessly to advance her vision to “reshape Nigeria’s non-oil export landscape, steering the country towards global competitiveness in non-oil commodities and reducing dependence on oil export.” She expressed her concern towards the need for non-oil export in a statement she made at the 3rd National conference on non-oil export that “the evolving global economy fluctuations in demand and prices of oil underscore the need for diversification to non-oil exports for sustainable growth and development and Nigeria is blessed with enormous resources”.
Under her leadership, the NEPC has launched several initiatives such as the SheTrades initiative to support women entrepreneurs in Nigeria. The initiative provides several benefits for women including access to international markets, training and webinars for capacity building, participation in global trade events, mentorship programs with international buyers and investors and above all an impressive digital platform for connecting to international markets. Additionally, several export incentives were introduced to encourage exportation and help exporters increase the volume of exported products. These are the Export Development Fund and the Export Expansion Grant respectively.
In furtherance of the vision towards non-oil export promotion known as the Zero Oil Plan, the NEPC has forged several collaborations with both public and private organisations such as the Nigerian Customs, Lelook Academy, Centre for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries (CBI), Jigawa State, etc.
In no time, these efforts have began to yield results as the ED/CEO; Nonye Ayeni disclosed in September, 2024 that Nigeria recorded total receipts of $2.7 billion from non-oil exports, a 6.26% increase from 2023. In the same year, Nigeria’s export trade volume also increased by 20.7% to $5.45 billion. These figures are impressive especially considering the past of the Nigeria export sector.
The NEPC further enhanced the export sector by helping companies procure more machinery to expand their production for export which has led to creation of more jobs. The council also monitors the quality and standard of products going out of Nigeria to improve the quality of exported products and the council maintains a database of all Nigerian exporters so that overseas buyers can easily find potential legitimate suppliers. These strategic efforts will continue to enhance the contribution of exportation activities to Nigeria’s economy.
The NEPC continues to actively pursue its mandate having rolled out several other plans and future initiatives such as the Export 35 Redefined, NEPC Connect, Go Global, Go for Certification Campaign, The Domestic Export Warehouse (DEW), STDF project 845, Informal Cross Border Trade (ICBT), etc.
There is no doubt that the NEPC is fixated for more concerted efforts towards ensuring that the export sector continues to contribute its quota to Nigeria’s growing economy. This becomes more feasible as the NEPC operates under the oversight of the experienced, passionate and success-driven Nonye Ayeni.
Deborah Anyanwu,
Member of the editorial team of TheScript Newspapers.
