By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, has assured that the organization will support Nigeria with capacity building and technical assistance, to improve the quality of the products for export.
Okonjo-Iweala said this on Monday during her visit to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama.
She also assured that WTO will work with entrepreneurs and producers to ensure that the country’s products can access other markets in the world, adding that women entrepreneur will be supported.
She informed that the organization will help women entrepreneur to access the international market working with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC)
She also revealed that the WTO will work with other international organization that has access to more finance such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank, (ADB) the Asian Infrastructure Bank and even the International Monetary Bank to help Nigeria solve some of the deficit with respect to infrastructure and other areas.
Her words; “Nigeria stands to benefit by encouraging and pushing more trade, becoming a bigger part of the multilateral trading system and to do that Nigeria has to produce more, add value to products and export more. Right now, Nigeria has 0.26 percent of world trade and 19 percent of African trade. You could see that as very small but you could also turn it around to see that it has a big opportunity to make use of what has happened with the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA).
“The WTO will support the country with capacity building, technical assistance to improve the quality of the products that we export, work with entrepreneurs, producers to make that happen so that our products can access other markets particularly since we need to diversify away from oil and process more agricultural products and this needs a lot of care. So we hope to be able to provide that directly.
“We want to support women entrepreneur because we have a part of the organization called the International Trade Center that has the capacity to train women entrepreneur and help access the international market working with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC). And we’ve already started that with people who are processing shear butter and sesame seed where Nigeria is one of the world’s largest producers. Those are some of the areas.
“Finally, WTO is going to work with other international organization that has access to more finance such as the World Bank, the African Development Bank, (ADB) the Asian Infrastructure Bank and even the International Monetary Bank to see how we can come together to help Nigeria solve some of the deficit with respect to infrastructure and other areas and the regulatory framework for some of the trade areas. And then, be able to be strengthened for bigger and larger trade, particularly on the African continent.”
The Nigeria former Finance Minister revealed that the WTO engagement with Nigerian entrepreneurs in trading shear butter and sesame seed has yielded results “We have already done something, we’ve started with women and men who produce shear butter and we’ve worked with their cooperative and we’ve been able to assist them to increase their production, meet the quality requirement to use shear butter for cosmetics and then they’ve sold 200 metric tons and orders for 500 more metric tons,” she said.
