The Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mohammed Bello-Koko has said country’s exports are beginning to yield results as a total of 3.5 million metric tonnes of export trade were facilitated through the nation’s seaports in the first six months of this year, between January and June.
Bello-Koko disclosed this during a panel session on the export of non-oil products at the 2023 Zenith Bank International Trade Seminar in Lagos, held in Lagos on Tuesday.
According to businessday.ng, he stated that NPA has been recording growth in export since 2019.
He said in 2019, the ports recorded about 2.8 million metric tonnes of export, and it increased to 3.8 million metric tonnes in 2020.
According to him, export volume grew in 2021 to 3.79 million metric tonnes, and over 5.1 million metric tonnes in 2022.
He said the NPA is working closely with other government agencies such as Customs, Nigerian Shippers’ Council and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, to ensure that imports and exports are cleared out of the port faster.
“We need the Customs to reduce the time it takes to scan and inspect cargo because the faster it takes, the earlier the importer and exporters take their goods,” he said.
Bello-Koko said the collaboration with the Nigeria Customs Service helped the NPA in achieving the feat as he expressed optimism that the agency will achieve more than it attained in previous years.
“NPA’s responsibility is to handle the logistics issue as relates to the delivery of cargo to ports, reviewing the cargo and also ensuring that it is loaded for the voyage. We encouraged the terminal operators to create hinterland aggregation points and dedicated spaces for export within the port terminals, but we need to realise that the ports are very small and therefore there are capacity issues.
