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•As Norway seeks stronger business tiers with Nigeria
By Chinyere Anyanwu, [email protected]
The Norwegian Seafood Council in Nigeria has reiterated its call on the Federal Government to delist stockfish from the list of 41 items not eligible to access forex from the official window.
The call was made by stakeholders in the stockfish value chain in Lagos during a tour of the Oto Stockfish Market in Ebutemetta.
Speaking during the exercise, Consultant for the Norwegian Seafood Council in Nigeria, Abiodun Oritsejemine Cheke, appealed to the government to complete the delisting of stockfish from the 41 items that are not entitled to access forex from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Cheke, a former Deputy Director of the Federal Department of Fisheries, said, “We continue to implore the Federal Government to remove stockfish from the list of 41 items that are not allowed to access forex from the official window.”
Buttressing her reason for the appeal, Cheke explained: “You can see the number of people involved in the selling of the various types of stockfish, especially the head that is for the common man. You can see the way they are cutting it into small sizes so that every category of people, whether poor or rich, can afford it. The price of a single head ranges from N1,500 to N3,000 but when it is cut into smaller pieces and tied, you buy the worth of N100, N200, N500, etc.
“In this market alone, we have up to 10,000 people engaged in this trade. We have the transporters, wheelbarrow pushers, women who are selling the cut pieces, those selling wholesale heads alone, those selling bodies, the young men whose work is to cut the stockfish heads into smaller pieces and other ancillary traders involved in this value chain. If the stockfish sellers don’t have access to forex to keep importing it, the about 50,000 people involved in this trade will lose their livelihood and there will be more poverty and a subsequent increase in all the crimes associated with poverty.”
Cheke, who noted that stockfish is not in competition with any other product in Nigeria because it is not bred here, therefore, hopes that the Nigerian government, through the CBN, will assist in removing it from the list of 41 items that cannot access foreign exchange.
She further spoke on the European Union (EU) ban on Nigeria’s aquaculture products and the efforts of Seafood Council to get the ban lifted.
According to her, “the ban came into force because our aquaculture practitioners did not know how to process their products in a modern way. The Seafood Council, through the Norwegian government, the Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and the Norwegian Foreign Affairs have since last year been trying to train Nigerian aquaculture practitioners on how to do things well and sustainably as is done in other countries so that the EU ban on Nigeria’s aquaculture products will be lifted.”
She added: “We are ready to continue this training as far as we can to ensure that Nigeria’s aquaculture products can get into the international market and the country can earn more foreign exchange from a source other than oil. The EU ban came into force because our aquaculture practitioners did not know how to process their products in a modern way. But with the training we started in May last year here in Lagos, where we train government officials, fisheries people and some other stakeholders, Nigeria has been able to get some leeway and this training the trainers programme is supposed to be a continuous process which we are ready to do but we need a soft landing.”
Also speaking, the Business Counsellor, Norwegian Embassy, Eivind Fjeldstad, said his country was keen on identifying areas of collaboration between Nigeria and Norway to foster greater and more fruitful business relationship.
Fjeldstad, who was excited at the market tour exercise, said, “we are trying as much as we can to build a bridge between Nigerian and Norwegian business communities.
Look for opportunities where Nigeria and Norway can collaborate and that could in fishery, energy, agribusiness, etc. So wherever we see that there are opportunities to do something together, we try to identify those opportunities and tap into them.”
He noted that, “I have been in Northern Norway where they produce stockfish and to finally see the market where it is sold is something fantastic. We have heard so much about the Norway/Nigeria stockfish trade and it’s good to see it with your own eyes.”
For his part, the Chairman, Stockfish Sellers Association (Aborigene), Ambassador Steven Eze, who lamented the challenges inherent in the importation of stockfish, especially with Immigration and Customs, attributed the increasingly high cost of the product to the exorbitant duties paid at the ports.
A stockfish dealer at the market, Celestine Amaefule, the CEO, Chrisvirgin Enterprise, joined the appeal for official access to forex.
Listing some of the bottlenecks encountered in the stockfish business, Amaefule said, “one of the challenges we have is at the seaport. Clearing takes a long time and the process is so tedious and the duty is also high. Another major challenge is the exchange rate. Stockfish is one of the 41 items that do not have official access to forex so those of us engaged in its importation source forex from the black market at very high rate and this contributes to jerking up the price of the item in the market. So if government can grant us access to forex so that we can get forex direct from banks, it will go a long way in reducing the price for the consumer.”
