The Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), on Thursday promised to further support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the country and boost their contributions to Nigeria’s export trade to raise Nigeria’s export earnings to $35 billion over the next five years.
The Director-General of agency, Mr. Olawale Fasanya, made this projection at the closing of the implementation of the packaging and branding programme for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) products in the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
He said that the agency intended to achieve the target through sustained and vigorous implementation of the packaging and branding programme for SMEs and urged the sub-sector’s operators to embrace innovative packaging and branding to make their products competitive in the international market.
Fasanya, who charged Nigerian business owners to begin to think and act creatively, becoming measured risk-takers and problem solvers, also stressed on the need for them to pursue “highest standards attainable in production and service delivery so as to remain relevant in the international market.”
The SMEDAN boss, who listed poor product quality and packaging as some of the causes of non-competitiveness of many locally produced products in the global market, pointed out that to capture the international market, Nigerian products must be of competitive quality, affordable, well-packaged and uniquely branded.
He expatiated: “One of the challenges confronting Nigerian exports is rejection and under-pricing of their products in the international market.
“Some of the reasons adduced for this trend include poor product quality, poor packaging and branding, lack of information on the nature and dynamics of global market and disregard for basic requirements.
“Others are inadequate policy arrangement between Nigeria and export-destination countries and delays at the Nigerian ports leading to expiration of the product shelf life or depreciation of product value”, Fasanya added.
He further pointed out that innovative packaging protects products along the value chain and provides essential information about the maker and the exporter.
Fasanya clarified: “It is also essential for cleaner, more convenient product presentation and less susceptible to losses from theft, evaporation, spilling, spoilage and damage while innovate branding offers ease of product identification and enhances corporate image among others.”
Identifying export trade as a catalyst for sustainable economic development, the Director-General said that through export trade, Nigeria earns vital foreign exchange, increases her revenue base and foreign reserve and avoids trade deficit.
He said: “The observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) once ranked Nigeria as the 49th largest export economy in the world, having exported goods worth 47.8 billion dollars and imported goods worth 39.5 billion dollars.
“Nigeria’s non-oil export is projected to hit 25 billion dollars by 2025, from 2.7 billion dollars in 2022, according to the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC). In the first six months of 2022 alone, Nigeria recorded 2.5 billion dollars in revenue in non-oil export”, the SMEDAN boss added
Fasanya further said that the programme would increase the number of SMEs that would meet AfCFTA standards as well as enhance cluster development and improve common processing facilities and value addition.
Some of the participants who spoke on the capacity building programme, commended the SMEDAN’s management for the opportunity availed them to attend the event which, they said, exposed them to critical knowledge about how to access to vital global business information.
