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By Emmanuella Anokam
Abuja, Jan. 14, 2021 The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo, on Thursday inaugurated a steering committee for the implementation of the Export Expansion Facility (EEF) to boost non-oil exports.
Adebayo at the virtual inauguration of the committee warned that the economy would remain vulnerable to external shocks with attendant effects of devaluation, inflation and unemployment, if the country did not grow its non-oil exports.
The minister in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Ifedayo Sayo, said that export growth was at the centre of the strategy for diversifying Nigeria’s sources of foreign exchange.
There are strong indications that Nigeria’s efforts to claw back some of the foreign-exchange earnings lost to falling oil prices are causing delays in exports ranging from cocoa beans to cashew nuts, and adding to a problem the central bank sought to address in the first place.
Nigeria is the world’s fifth-biggest producer of cocoa beans, a key ingredient in chocolate. As Africa’s largest economy, it also fell into a recession last quarter.
A Bloomberg report Friday quoted Pius Ayodele, president of Cocoa Exporters Association of Nigeria, as saying that about 100,000 tons of cocoa beans are trapped at the ports and another 100,000 tonnes of a variety of agricultural commodities are in warehouses around the country.
As Nigeria s Agricultural Export Plunge New Rule Leaves Tonnes of Cocoa Beans Trapped at Nigerian Ports naija247news.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from naija247news.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.