The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, said that “a lot of” countries were denying Nigeria access to their markets because of the quality of their products exported.
Onyeama said this in a meeting in Abuja with the Executive Director of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Olusegun Awolowo.
He said, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a comparative and unique advantage to be physically present in over a 100 countries in the world.”
“Now this represents truly a unique opportunity to leverage on that presence to export and trade our goods.
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“There are a number of countries around the world not blessed with the natural resources that we have but yet, through trade, have transformed their societies and have become major economic powers.
“In engaging with a number of countries, we have seen that, especially in the agriculture sector, the phytosanitary aspect is very important.
“We are being denied market access into a lot of countries because of the quality of the products.
“And this is costing us huge resources. So I think that your agency (NEPC) also has a lot of work to do.”
