Nigeria Eyes £14bn in UK Trade Scheme for Developing Countries

James Emejo in Abuja

The Executive Director/Chief Executive, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Dr. Ezra Yakusak has said that the Developing Countries Trade Scheme (DCTS) recently unveiled by the United Kingdom (UK) would further support sustainable economic growth for Nigeria’s non-oil export sector.

Specifically, the NEPC boss said Nigeria could potentially grow its exports to the UK from 0.3 per cent to 5 per cent share of the market by 2030 with a value of £14 billion.

Speaking at a workshop organised by the UK-Africa Trade and Investment Service, the NEPC boss pointed out that DCTS would boost trade with Least Developing Countries (LDCs) through reduced tariffs as well as simplified Rules of Origin for LDCs.

Essentially, the DCTS is designed to replace the UK’s current Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) early in the year with the former expected to improve access to the UK market for developing countries.

The DCTS aims to support sustainable growth in developing countries through a more generous unilateral offer among others.

Yakusak explained that the essence of NEPC’s participation was to sensitise the Nigerian exporting community to take advantage of the new scheme as well as provide veritable information that will proffer solutions to technical and operational challenges faced by Nigerian exporters.

He said, “The opportunity for Nigeria to increase its non-oil exports to the UK in sectors where supply currently exceeds the demand are cocoa, fertilizers, sesame, ginger, and cashew nuts. Others are natural rubber, cotton, frozen prawn, plantain, and tomatoes.”

Yakusak, however, lamented the several challenges that have continued to inhibit the country from realising its potential.

In a statement issued by NEPC Head, Corporate Communications, Mr. Ndubueze Okeke, Yakusak further explained that with the new development, Nigeria no longer has to ratify the 36 conventions with the UK before trading.

He said, “This is significantly more generous than both the EU’s GSP scheme and the US’ AGOA scheme and, based on current trade volumes, would mean that 99 per cent of goods exports to the UK are duty-free.”

Other major aspects of the new scheme include cutting tariffs for Nigeria so that 3000 new products are duty free for the first time.

Also, the average existing tariff on these goods is 7 per cent, implying that these changes make Nigerian exports more competitive in the UK.

In addition, many tariff reductions are on value-added goods such as processed sesame oil, cotton clothing, and cocoa butter and paste and complement existing duty-free trade on raw products.