Olusola Bello
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that the introduction of its Trade Monitoring Portal (TRMP) has helped reduce the time of completion for the export documentation process from 2 weeks to about 30 minutes currently.
According to a report from the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), this was disclosed by the Governor of CBN, Mr Godwin Emefiele, at the Zenith Bank’s 2021 Export Seminar on Tuesday, April 20, 2021, in Lagos
The CBN governor said the apex bank in collaboration with stakeholders is trying to reposition the Nigerian Commodity Exchange to facilitate greater trade for operators especially in the area of manufacturing, ICT, agriculture and financial services
He said that international buyers of raw and processed agricultural commodities can now enter into forward contracts with domestic suppliers on the exchange once the exchange becomes fully operational in the second half of the year
This is as the apex bank has asked Nigerian commercial banks to take advantage of their presence in other parts of Africa to support Nigerian businesses seeking to expand into new markets.
Emefiele believes that these forward contracts would help to support improved productivity for farmers and agro-processors and also help to improve access to credit for these entities using the forward contracts as collateral.
This is as the apex bank has asked Nigerian commercial banks to take advantage of their presence in other parts of Africa to support Nigerian businesses seeking to expand into new markets
He also wants the commercial banks to support Nigerian businesses by providing trade facilities to those with strong potential for growth.
He said that the CBN had moved to improve the productive capacity of businesses, which would enable them to take advantage of export opportunities in Africa.
Emefiele said, “Our intervention programmes in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, are helping to enable businesses to expand their scales of production, which is not only meeting growing domestic demand for goods but also providing goods for the export market.
In addition, we have set up a N500 billion non-oil export stimulation facility with the Nigerian Export-Import Bank. This initiative will also help to enable greater exports of processed agriculture commodities into other markets in Africa and in the global market.’’
According to him, improving the business environment in Nigeria is also vital if we are to harness the gains from the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).
