AfCFTA Training Will Enhance Competitiveness- NAGAFF

Chinazor Megbolu

The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) had said that Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) training is expected to enhance competitiveness in the maritime.

The organisation said this on Wednesday stressing AfCFTA will also boost the industry and enterprise level through exploitation of opportunities for large scale production, continental market access and better reallocation of resources respectively.

The National President, NAGAFF, Chief Increase Uche in his remarks explained the training would also enable members of NAGAFF to work effectively with standards and help them operate at the same level with their mates globally.

According to him; “independent freight forwarders do not have the wherewithal to push themselves forward, as they are constrained by cash”.

“We are ready to adopt AfCFTA; what we need is capacity development. We need government support for us to operate on the same level with our counterparts overseas”.

He noted that Kenya, Ivory Coast, South Africa, are almost ahead of Nigeria in terms of logistics performance index.

Uche pointed out that government needs to do something in the area of ease of doing business, that would help members operate at level that will enable them compete favourably.

“We are preparing for AfCFTA, we are equal to the task in terms of training, we know what to do but we equally need government support for us to move ahead, ”he said.

Uche urged that the training could be under the Council for the Regulation of Freight Forwarding in Nigeria (CRFFN), whose objectives is to ensure that freight forwarders are trained and given the proficiency to manage the supply chain properly.

He, however, pleaded with the federal government to help support on human capacity development of its members.

Uche further posited that such training will equip the members achieve maximum benefits in the implementation of the AfCFTA.

He observed the objectives of AfCFTA is to create a single continental market for goods and services with free movement of business persons, investments and paving way for accelerating the establishment of the Customs Union.

Uche averred that financial support from government would assist members beneficially in their businesses and prevent them from continuously being ordinary document facilitators”.

“We cannot continue to do documentation alone, we need to build assets, we need to be a third party logistics service provider and have structures, “Uche said.