Economy Diversification: Nigeria must be ready for export… Heritage Bank
For Nigeria to succeed in economic diversification which it presently glamor for, it should put in place measures to improve export.
This was the submission of the Group Head, Agric Finance, Heritage Bank Limited, Olugbenga Awe.
Speaking at the 2016 Annual Conference organized by Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) in Lekki, Lagos, Awe said that to encourage export the government should ensure that problems militating against agriculture production in the country basically lack of storage facilities and good road/rail system were tackled, to make sure farm proceeds get to its destination even without dilapidating.
According to him, most often farmers were reluctant to plant because of fear of watching their proceed got rotten right in the farm.
” I happen to be at tomatoes farm in the Northern part of the country, and I discovered that farmers were not planting for the season and I asked why, they told me that they will not Planting because if they do, when harvesting time comes people will be pricing it low”, adding that if they were unable to sell those proceeds at such a give way price, they would definitely become wasted.
Speaking on the the theme: ‘Nigeria Beyond Oil: Financing Options for Non-Oil Exports’, he warned that loan seekers should competently guarantee that the loan asking for will yield returns, farmers, he said mainly found it difficult to give guarantee such.
He further pointed out that for banks to lend to non-oil sectors of the economy, the lenders always lookout for customers’ history of previous transaction to ensure that the loans would be repaid.
The bank, he added, can also consider the export volume, frequency of export, payment methods and transaction cycle.
He said that banks are also confronted with the problems of inadequate export finance resources, inadequate infrastructure to control products quality and lack of dependable source of local product prices and supplier information among others.
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