The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) says it will train 80 youths for free to equip them with the knowledge of export procedures to boost non-oil exports.

NEPC’s Regional Coordinator, Mr Babatunde Faleke, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Thursday.

Faleke, who said the programme was targeted at youths in Lagos, explained that the lack of knowledge of export procedures had greatly limited the volume of non-oil exports from Nigeria.

According to him, the training programme will be tagged: ‘Zero to Export.’

“Zero to Export programme is a capacity programme that is a practical mentorship programme, designed for those who have passion and funds to export but don’t know how to go about it.

“So the programme is a practical mentorship programme that would hand-hold them from day one to the end.

“It is an eight week programme where people would be taught on the rudiments of export.

“The processes will involve the documentation, procedure, sourcing of products and everything that has to do with export.

“If you don’t know anything about export; we take you through until you export.

“The problem we are trying to address is that most people come to our office and register as exporters.

“We discovered that the level of registration is high; people just register for the sake of registration without having the deep knowledge.

“So we now developed this programme to make sure we take them through, using people that have exported and sharing experiences on how to go about it.

“We are partnering with Fidelity Bank, our targets are those who registered with us and they are not exporting.

“We already have 80 participants registered with us; it will be a quarterly programme.”

He told NAN that the programme was the fifth in the series being organised by the council, but the first to be held in the South-West beginning with Lagos.

NAN reports that NEPC is a Federal Government agency for the promotion of non-oil exports. (NAN)

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