FEC Approves National Quality Policy For Exports
The 31st virtual Federal Executive Council (FEC) presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the National Quality Policy to stop the rejection of Nigerian exports.
Minister of Industry Trade and Investment, Niyi Adebayo, who briefed State House Correspondents at the end of the meeting, said the essence of the policy is to ensure exported local goods are accepted in their countries of destination.
According to him, “For a long time, Nigerian exporters have been suffering because of lack of quality of their goods. We felt that it was high time we actually had a policy which would create a situation whereby standard of the Nigerian goods that are exported would be raised, such that that rejection would stop.
“This policy will create a situation whereby the government and the private sector will be able to collaborate to set up quality testing centers, testing labs which we hope will have accreditation with international centers, such that any good that has been approved to have met the standard, would be of international standard”.
Adebayo said the council also approved the Nigerian/Hungarian Trade Agreement. He said the agreement between the two countries have now been ratified. The whole essence is for Nigerian businessmen to have access to export their goods to Hungary and to further increase trade between the two countries.
The minister said council also approved a N50 million variation of power contract in the Kano Free Trade Zone.
The memo, he said, was on behalf of the Nigerian Export Processing Zone Authority (NEPZA).
Adebayo, explained that a contract was awarded in 2018 for underground cable for power project within the Kano Free Trade Zone but unfortunately it was not completed before certain specification changes were made.
He said: “So the contractor requested a variation of six per cent increase of the initial contract sum, which amounted to about N50 million. Council has approved that variation and the job which has reached 93 percent completion will be completed within the next six months.”
Adebayo said council also approved another contract for NEPZA, for the purchase of a property in Lagos to be used as Lagos zonal office.
“As you are aware, NEPZA is responsible for all the free trade zones in the country, the value of the free trade zones in the Lagos area alone is valued at about $30 billion. So for proper collation and oversight of these free trade zones, we felt that it is only right that we have the zonal office of the NEPZA in the Lagos area and that has been approved by council.”
Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on his part said council approved the contract for the design and deployment of a contract performance and compliance for highway and road management system at the sum of N203,845,332.50.
