Nigeria Customs sets sight on trade facilitation through AfCFTA, AGOA
Nigeria Customs sets sight on trade facilitation through AfCFTA, AGOA
The Comptroller General of Nigeria Customs Service, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi has reiterated the commitment of the Service to grow the country’s economy leveraging on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the US government backed African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) .
The CGC stated this at the Science of Trade (SOT) Conference organised by Ascend Studios Foundation in partnership with the US Consulate and other groups.
This is contained in a statement made public on Sunday by Abubakar Usman, Public Relations Officer (PRO), Apapa Area Command
Represented at the event by the Comptroller Babatunde Olomu, the Customs Area Controller (CAC), Apapa command, Adeniyi said the NCS was setting the process of perfecting trade procedures within the Customs zone.
According to him, Nigeria Customs is collaborating with the Directorate General, Taxation and Customs Union (DG TAXUD) of the European Union (EU) for efficient export monitoring and trade facilitation.
He added that as part of the NCS outreach program, the service was also working with other agencies of the Nigerian government to maximize the opportunities in trade and reduce the incident of Nigerian goods being returned from countries of destination
For traders willing to participate in AGOA, the CGC disclosed that efforts were on for the establishment of a one-stop-shop export seat for export documentation so that it will reduce the time taken for Nigerian exporters to get their goods out of our port.
“Programmes like the Time Release Studies, which we are targeting towards importing of goods and how much time it takes for businessmen to clear their goods in the port are geared towards enhancing Customs efficiency in Nigeria in line with global best practices.
The exercise, Adeniyi maintained, is directed at having a scientific measure of how long and how much it costs Nigerian businessmen to export their products through NCS control with a view to identifying bureaucratic procedures, or laws that are creating delays so that compliant traders can get their cargoes off the ports, border stations and airports in good time.
He also listed continuous training and retraining of different cadres of Customs officers, regular interface with various stakeholders and sustained improvement on technological capacity as part of efforts embarked upon since his assumption of office.
Speaking as a panelist during the interactive session, Comptroller Olomu gave detailed analysis of the trade facilitation benefits in the NCS Act 2023 and the ease of doing business advantages captured in the new Customs law.
The Apapa CAC urged participants comprising of entrepreneurs, diplomats and other members of the trading community to keep themselves abreast with the provisions of government import and export prohibition lists
He added that Apapa port command was evolving a reliable system to process non intrusive inspection of cargoes that meets World Customs Organisation (WCO) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) standards.
