Banks should target financing trade to boost exports from Nigeria — LCCI

…Commends UBA on trade fair partnership

Adenike Agunsoye

The Lagos State Chamber for Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has tasked Banks to finance trade to boost export from Nigeria. This statement was made by the President of Lagos State Chamber of Commerce and Industry Asiwaju (Dr.) Micheal Olawale-Cole at the United Bank for Africa (UBA) special day event at the ongoing 2022 Lagos International Trade Fair (LITF).

He commended the  Group Managing Director and  Chief Executive Officer Of  UBA PLC, Mr. Oliver Alawuba for approving the partnership support from his bank towards hosting the 2022 Lagos International Trade Fair.

“We congratulate UBA PLC for securing the headline partnership of the fair this year. We look forward to more mutually beneficial collaborations in the future,” he said.

He assured that the 2022 Lagos International Trade Fair is poised to create value for exhibitors, visitors, sponsors, and government through a trade platform that brings together buyers and sellers. The fair also focuses on exhibitors providing discounted prices to buyers even as they use the fair to offload their inventories as we approach the year-end.

He said the trade fair which is built and runs on a very robust media coverage before, during, and after the event, gives great value to all corporate organizations  either exhibiting or as sponsors and partners of the fair.

Speaking at the event, Dr. Olawale-Cole explained that this year’s Trade Fair is specially packaged to showcase innovations in goods and services on the platform of competitiveness that showcases indigenous/homegrown businesses and their foreign counterparts from across the world with the distractions to global supply chains induced by the COVID-19 Pandemic, Russia-Ukraine War, and more recently climate change impacts. The international trade has been recommended as a veritable tool to build back, and sustainably too.

He commended the recently launched Special Agro Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZ) Programme by the Federal Government and supported by The African Development Bank (AFDB), The Islamic Development Bank and The International Fund for Agriculture Development, as Co-financiers.

He agreed that the SAPZ is expected to mobilize Private and Public Sector Investments to develop value chains for selected crops and livestock, starting with the eight participating States.

In his speech, he asserted that, “We look forward to an increase in export trade of agro-processed products across the continent and boosting intra-African trade under the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). The UBA Plc has deep roots across the African continent and branches in many countries. financing trade to boost exports from Nigeria should be the target of banks in Nigeria in exploring the opportunities provided by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA).”

Speaking about this year’s trade fair, Dr Olawale-Cole confirmed that LCCI  is featuring some African countries in the Africa hall, hosted by Afrexim Bank,  as a practical way to promote AfCFTA and boost intra-Africa trade. The countries include Ghana, Sierra Leone, Cote D’ivoire, Rwanda, South Sudan and Cameroon among others.  He warmly welcome them to Lagos.

“We congratulate once again the UBA Group for its recent expansion and commencement of business operations in Dubai, The United Arab Emirates. From the bank’s unaudited financial reports as at end of third quarter of 2022, gross earnings rose by 23.3 per cent to N608 billion from N493 billion recorded in the same period of 2021. We expect the participation of the bank in the fair to boost its fourth quarter earnings when the report is presented early next year. We are happy to be part of the success story of the UBA PLC. The LCCI is proud to be associated with the  UBA PLC in its push for a stronger and more prosperous Nigerian economy.”