The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) says the UK’s recently launched Developing Countries Trade Scheme (DCTS) would support sustainable economic growth for Nigeria’s non-oil export.

NEPC CEO Ezra Yakusak said this at a workshop on the DCTS in Lagos organised by the UK-Africa Trade and Investment Service.

In a statement issued on Thursday in Abuja by NEPC’s spokesman Ndubueze Okeke, Mr Yakusak said it would boost trade with Least Developing Countries (LDCs) through reduced tariffs as well as simplified Rules of Origin for LDCs.

He added that NEPC’s participation was to sensitise the exporting community to take advantage of the new scheme. The NEPC boss said it would also provide veritable information that would proffer solutions to technical and operational challenges faced by Nigerian exporters.

According to him, with the launch of the new scheme, Nigeria could potentially grow its exports to the UK from 0.3 per cent to a five per cent market share by 2030 with a value of £14 billion.

“The opportunity for Nigeria to increase its non-oil exports to the UK in sectors where supply currently exceeds the demand are cocoa, fertilizers, sesame, ginger and cashew nuts. Others are natural rubber, cotton, frozen prawn, plantain and tomatoes,” he added.

Mr Yakusak, however, lamented that several challenges continued to inhibit the country from realising its potential, listing market access, access to affordable finance, cost and pricing and poor regulatory regime/bureaucratic process.

“Others are infrastructure deficits such as bad road networks, power outages and dilapidated port facilities, leading to port congestion,” stated Mr Yakusak.

He further said that under the new scheme, DCTS would replace the UK’s current Generalised System of Preference (GSP) while Nigeria would benefit from 9500 tariff lines instead of the previous eight.

“Besides, Nigeria no longer has to ratify the 36 conventions with the UK before trading,” stated the NEPC boss. “This is significantly more generous than both the EU’s GSP scheme and the US’ AGOA scheme and, based on current trade volumes, would mean that 99 per cent of goods exported to the UK are duty-free.”

(NAN)