Business
THE Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) on Tuesday equipped beneficiaries of the Export Expansion Grant (EEG) by training them on technological strategies to ensure competitiveness at the global market.
Its Executive Director, Mr Olusegun Awolowo, said at the training of EEG beneficiaries on web portal in Lagos that the training was in collaboration with the Price Water Cooperation (PWC).
Awolowo, represented by Mr Samuel Oyeyipo, Regional Coordinator, South-West Zone of NEPC, said that a web portal was recently created and scheduled to be launched in January 2020.
According to him, this is to reduce turnaround time and promote transparency in the processing of claim for exporters.
Awolowo added that the training was convened in fulfillment of spearheading the administration of incentives which was in tandem with the international best practices for the development of non-oil export sector.
He explained that to achieve the goals of diversification of the nation’s economy from oil dependence, technology had to be introduced to non-oil sector to improve the country’s ranking on ease of doing business.
This, Awolowo said, was with a view to promote transparency, reduce paperwork involved with manual submission and ultimately, reduce turnaround time for processing of claims.
“The diversification of the economy from oil is one of the focal points of economic development at the centre of this current government’s mandate.
“The EEG will play an important role in actualizing this goal, hence, the introduction of a web portal where exporters can conveniently capture their baseline data, claims’ applications and submit them online from the comfort of their homes and offices.
“I strongly believe that the automation of the EEG processing through the introduction and efficient implementation of the portal would significantly improve the performance of the non-oil sector of the Nigerian economy,” he said.
Also, Mr Lawal Dalhat, Deputy Director, Incentives NEPC, said that the portal which was currently being run would greatly ease the stress of physical presence and travelling associated with the former way of processing claims.
Dalhat said the portal was created in line with the government’s policy to improve the ease of doing business within the nation.
“The platform provides opportunity for all stakeholders, processing government agencies, auditors, exporters and relevant bodies to submit, review and access information regarding processing of claims.
“We believe that the automated programme will further boost non-oil exports as more exporters will be encouraged to participate in subsequent export transactions,” he said. (NAN)
– Dec. 10, 2019 @ 17:27 GMT |
Tags: NEPC trains EEG beneficiaries on online platform
