The UK Government has estimated that following the latest downward review of tariffs and extended duty free trade in goods exported from Nigeria to United Kingdom, Nigeria will yearly save over £750 million in export charges.
The UK Deputy British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Mr. Ben Llewellyn-Jones, who made this disclosure during the launch of the Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) in Lagos, expressed optimism that the scheme, scheduled to commence from April this year, would help to boost Nigeria’s non-oil exports in line with the government’s wider trade policy goals.
He said: “The UK Government has reduced the tariffs of 90 percent of goods that Nigeria would export to our country and has also provided preferential trading scheme for range of other exports that the country might have.
“We have reached out to small and large businesses in different parts of the country and this is intended to help exporters and other people in the trading business to make the United Kingdom an export destination.
“This would also serve as an opportunity to grow the non-oil and gas sector in Nigeria and create jobs in the country, and most importantly, we are reaching out to people at the grassroots level so they can know what we are doing.
“The DCTS is much more generous and simpler than the existing Generalized Scheme of Preferences (GSP)”, Llewellyn-Jones added.
The Envoy, who puts the bilateral trade value of the two countries for year 2022 as £2.2 billion of which oil and gas sector accounted for the largest chunk, harped on the importance of expanding the market and diversifying into other sectors including exportation.
Llewellyn-Jones clarified: “We have to change focus to non-oil sector but this takes time, but we are working with experts from Nigeria Export Promotion Council and the Federal Government to grow the economy through expanding of its export.
“The key challenges for exporters is finding key partners in the UK to sell their products but we are working on ensuring that we link exporters with potential buyers so as to ensure there is enough demand and supply”, he added.
In his remarks at the forum, the Senior Commercial Agriculture Adviser, Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Mr. Simon Calvert, pointed out that “cutting tariffs for Nigeria would ensure that 3000 new products are duty-free for the first time as the average existing tariff on these goods is seven per cent, meaning these changes make Nigerian exports more competitive in the UK.
Calvert listed the value added agro-commodity goods that would benefit more from the tariff reductions as including processed sesame oil, cotton clothing, cocoa butter and paste, among others.
