NEXIM Earmarks N36bn for states’ Non-oil Products Devt

• NEXIM Earmarks N36bn for states’ Non-oil Products Devt

The Nigerian Export-Import Bank has earmarked at least N1bn for each of the 36 states in Nigeria to enable them to develop one or two non-oil exportable commodities. These amount to N36bn.

The gesture is under the bank’s State/Regional Export Development Fund, which is aimed at developing the country’s non-oil commodities, including agricultural products.

The Managing Director, NEXIM, Mr Abba Bello, made the disclosure in Katsina on Monday at the opening of the bank’s two-day Exporter Enlightenment Forum for the north-west zone of the country.

Bello said, “In pursuance of the bank’s strategic initiative of promoting regional industrialisation for value-added exports and also fostering MSME’s greater participation in the regional and global value chains, we recently launched a new export development philosophy, called PAVE, which is Produce, Add Value and Export.”

According to him, the initiative seeks to ease the volume and array of exportable commodities from Nigeria, in addition to enhancing the contributions of value-added products in the bank’s export basket, thereby internalising and increasing the benefits of production through job creation and increased export earnings.

“In promoting the PAVE initiative, we have introduced a State/Regional Export Development Fund, under which at least N1bn has been earmarked for every state of the federation towards developing one or two exportable commodities of interest,” he said.

The NEXIM boss said a portion of the fund had also been earmarked to support industries that “are major employers of women and youth” under a special economic empowerment scheme for the vulnerable groups as part of the bank’s contribution towards meeting the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals.