NEXIM disburses N420bn to exporters

The Nigeria Export Import Bank (NEXIM) has disclosed that so far, it has disbursed N420 billion to exporters which has created about 12,000 direct jobs for youth and women in the country. Managing Director of NEXIM, Mr. Abubakar Abba Bello made the disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday at a forum with young entrepreneurs and business […]

The Nigeria Export Import Bank (NEXIM) has disclosed that so far, it has disbursed N420 billion to exporters which has created about 12,000 direct jobs for youth and women in the country.

Managing Director of NEXIM, Mr. Abubakar Abba Bello made the disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday at a forum with young entrepreneurs and business owners in the non-oil sector which was hosted by the office of the National Youth Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Hon. Dayo Israel.

According to  Bello, “Under the Export Development Fund which is a debentures signed with the CBN, so far, N137bn has been released to NEXIM which has been a revolving fund.

“We have gone beyond the export development fund. As we speak, NEXIM’s total assets is around N430bn and all our lending terms is the same with the export development fund with our interest rates at 9 per cent.

“So far, we have funded exports to the tune of 420bn to exporters and created 12,000 directs jobs,” he explained  Commenting on the recent ban on exports of raw shea, he said the decision of the federal government was a welcome development and it will open more doors for investments.

“When we came onboard, we noticed that Statistics show that 60 per cent of global shea is in Nigeria. Despite the fact that shea is largely in Nigeria, we didn’t have one industrial plant that was processing. So far we have 4 with 2 Ogun, 1 in Niger and 1 in Kano.

We even want to appeal to the federal government to increase the ban from 6 months to a year and even extend it to other agricultural value chains because we want to attract enormous investments in the sector and other agricultural value chains,” he said. Earlier in his remarks, the National Youth Leader of the APC noted that the forum with young exporters was paramount as it served as an avenue for interaction and sensitisation for exporters in terms of access to finance and how they can add value to their various products.