The Nigeria Export Promotion Council in collaboration with lawmaker representing Ede North, Ede South, Egbedore, Ejigbo federal constituency, Bamidele Salam organised a programme for youths on Export Development programme.
The educative and insightful programme had over 200 youths in attendance from across the Federal Constituency.
Speaking on the need to diversify the country from oil to agricultural exports, Representative Bamidele Salam stated that it was essential for the young people to learn the process of exporting goods to other countries in order to add value and improve the country’s economy.
“One of the major problems we have is that we are not conscious of the strength we have as a nation, our attention is just focused on oil and it is high time we started looking at the opportunities we have in agriculture, mining, manufacturing and how we can young entrepreneurs to tap into these opportunities especially in the area of adding value to them and accessing export markets.
“People lament on the high cost of dollars, its not rocket size, its just that we import more than we export. When you export, you earn more and when you import, you’re depicting your resources.
“So, it is high time we started getting young entrepreneurs to look at the various opportunities we have in Agriculture.
“Nigeria is blessed with textiles and clothing, we have amazing designs that have come out of these textiles. So we need to look for opportunities that will help us diversify the Nigeria economy and help the young ones to earn more foreign currency. So that we keep our reserve and also create more job opportunities for our people .
“For every importation made, we create more than 10 to 20 jobs for those countries that are producing. You create more opportunities for them to have upper hands but we need to start producing those items here and export them too, ” he explained.
“I also want to commend the Export Promotion Council for partnering with us in order to put together this programme”, he commended.
The State coordinator of NEPC, Sunday Ayodele emphasised on the importance of the programme to the youths and the requirements they need in order to go into non oil exportation.
He said “The essence of this youth export development programme is to train our youths that are intending to go to into non-oil exports on what they need to understand, the kind of products they can to export and to understand the kind of market they are going into law. They also need to understand the kind of environment their competitors are, the packaging and labelling requirements to meet the targeted audience. So, we can inculcate the export culture into our youths.
“We have advised people to also engage in value added products instead of Agriculture. Value Added product will not just increase the cost or price of their product but it will also stimulate job opportunities for the citizens. They can process these raw materials before exporting them, aside that there are other ventures , Osun is blessed with solid materials, Nigeria as a whole is endowed,” he remarked.
Beneficiaries also appreciated the the lawmaker and the NEPC for impacting them on the export development programme while adding that they have been able to see opportunities and also ways of rebranding and packaging their products in order to meet the targeted audience.
