Post by Trade facilitator on Aug 2, 2012 11:53:50 GMT 1
The Federal Government has said that a new framework that would help to reposition the commodities and exchange market would soon be unveiled.
Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, confirmed the development during a working visit to Tenti Greens and Integrated Dairies Limited in Abuja.
The minister lamented that the commodities and exchange market, as currently constituted in Nigeria, had not performed optimally; compared with its contemporaries in the sub region.
For instance, he said while the commodities market in Ethiopia had been able to boost earnings of farmers from 38 per cent to 68 per cent, “such cannot be said of the commodities exchange market in Nigeria”.
He said: “We have to assist the agriculture sector by having a very strong and robust commodities and exchange market. We tried to have one sometimes ago with the Abuja Securities and Commodities Exchange but it has not worked.
“So we are now in the process of transforming that to a very strong market. We have seen examples in other countries like Ethiopia and when we visited the Ethiopian exchange, we were delighted with what we saw.
“The benefit of a strong commodities exchange is that it creates a lot of jobs and opens the market. In Ethiopia, they have been able to increase the average income of farmers from 38 per cent to 68 per cent,” he added.
Aganga, accompanied by the Executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Mr. David Adelugba, also said the federal government had begun moves to develop the horticultural sector to make it a foreign exchange earner for the country.
He said the need to develop the sector became imperative as research carried out by the NEPC revealed that while exports of live flowers was a major foreign exchange earner in Kenya and other African countries, Nigeria was at the lower ebb of the production of the commodity.
This, he noted, was a major loss to the country in terms of foreign exchange as there was a conducive atmosphere in some states for the production of the commodity.
He said, “The NEPC has a mandate to promote and develop local commodity for export markets. They did a research which showed that a number of African countries were making so much money from the horticultural sector which is about flowers, vegetables.
“Kenya was earning so much money and we have the temperature in parts of the country where we can actually do this and leverage what we have in the country. So they invested with the private sector making us to be part investor in this project and the idea is to develop the horticulture sector of the economy both for local consumption and exports.
“The quality of what we have seen here shows that we can compete anywhere in the world and we need to encourage that,” he added.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Company Air Vice Marshal Ishaya Shekari (Rtd) said the horticulture project which began in 2008 would soon generate about N1.84 billion in revenue. He, however, said in the course of implementing the project, series of challenges were encountered.
Some of them include lack of soluble fertiliser in the country, and classification of equipments for the project by the Nigerian Custom Services; thus leading to high import duty.
Source: blog.iwatchlive.org/2012/07/fg-to-review-framework-for-commodities-market/
Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, confirmed the development during a working visit to Tenti Greens and Integrated Dairies Limited in Abuja.
The minister lamented that the commodities and exchange market, as currently constituted in Nigeria, had not performed optimally; compared with its contemporaries in the sub region.
For instance, he said while the commodities market in Ethiopia had been able to boost earnings of farmers from 38 per cent to 68 per cent, “such cannot be said of the commodities exchange market in Nigeria”.
He said: “We have to assist the agriculture sector by having a very strong and robust commodities and exchange market. We tried to have one sometimes ago with the Abuja Securities and Commodities Exchange but it has not worked.
“So we are now in the process of transforming that to a very strong market. We have seen examples in other countries like Ethiopia and when we visited the Ethiopian exchange, we were delighted with what we saw.
“The benefit of a strong commodities exchange is that it creates a lot of jobs and opens the market. In Ethiopia, they have been able to increase the average income of farmers from 38 per cent to 68 per cent,” he added.
Aganga, accompanied by the Executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Mr. David Adelugba, also said the federal government had begun moves to develop the horticultural sector to make it a foreign exchange earner for the country.
He said the need to develop the sector became imperative as research carried out by the NEPC revealed that while exports of live flowers was a major foreign exchange earner in Kenya and other African countries, Nigeria was at the lower ebb of the production of the commodity.
This, he noted, was a major loss to the country in terms of foreign exchange as there was a conducive atmosphere in some states for the production of the commodity.
He said, “The NEPC has a mandate to promote and develop local commodity for export markets. They did a research which showed that a number of African countries were making so much money from the horticultural sector which is about flowers, vegetables.
“Kenya was earning so much money and we have the temperature in parts of the country where we can actually do this and leverage what we have in the country. So they invested with the private sector making us to be part investor in this project and the idea is to develop the horticulture sector of the economy both for local consumption and exports.
“The quality of what we have seen here shows that we can compete anywhere in the world and we need to encourage that,” he added.
Earlier, the Chairman of the Company Air Vice Marshal Ishaya Shekari (Rtd) said the horticulture project which began in 2008 would soon generate about N1.84 billion in revenue. He, however, said in the course of implementing the project, series of challenges were encountered.
Some of them include lack of soluble fertiliser in the country, and classification of equipments for the project by the Nigerian Custom Services; thus leading to high import duty.
Source: blog.iwatchlive.org/2012/07/fg-to-review-framework-for-commodities-market/
