Economic stakeholders yesterday at the 7th Annual Edition of the Zenith Bank International Trade Seminar renewed their advocacy for stronger set of incentives that would help unleash the potential of Nigeria’s non-oil export sector.
At the seminar, themed “Unlocking Opportunities in Nigeria’s Non-Oil Export Business”, held at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos and virtually, the Founder and Chairman of Zenith Bank Plc, Mr. Jim Ovia, called for a concerted effort at diversifying Nigeria’s export base through the promotion of non-oil exports. Highlighting the importance of non-oil export to the nation’s economy, Ovia pointed out that Nigeria exported cocoa and several other non-oil products for many years before the discovery of oil, citing the 25-storey Cocoa House in Ibadan, as one national edifice built with proceeds from cocoa exports. He pointed out that many countries in the world, such as Japan and China been successful because they are doing a great deal of innovation, production and manufacturing of goods and services. According to him, Nigeria should also look at promoting the nation’s non-oil export sector through technology to create technological giants like Apple, Tesla, and Google. “And we already have technology companies in this mould in Nigeria, such as Flutterwave, which has a valuation of $3 billion, making it more valuable than some banks in Nigeria”. he said
Ovia highlighted the phenomenal growth of Nigeria’s emerging financial technology (Fintech) companies such as Flutherwave, OPay, Interswitch, Kuda and Paystack, with market valuations of $3 billion, $2 billion, $1 billion, $500 million, $200 million, respectively. According to him, this underscores the enormous opportunity in the Fintech space. He also noted that the most capitalised companies in the world, such as Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Tesla, Visa, are not oil companies but are in the technological innovation space.
In his welcome address, the Group Managing Director/CEO of Zenith Bank, Mr. Ebenezer Onyeagwu, said that the annual Zenith Bank Trade Seminar has served as a veritable platform to deepen the conversation on promoting non-oil export in Nigeria, bringing together non-oil export practitioners and relevant government agencies to interact and explore the opportunities and proffer solutions to the challenges of non-oil export in the country. Speaking on the origin of the Zenith Bank Annual International Trade Seminar, Onyeagwu said that the commodity price slump of 2014-2016 was a watershed moment. According to him, “when crude oil prices plummeted from $114.55 per barrel in June 2014 to $28.76 in January 2016, with an attendant effect on the availability of foreign exchange, it was time to look towards the non-oil export sector for more sustainable source of foreign exchange that is not susceptible to external shocks and price volatility.