ABX World in partnership with Skyway Aviation Handling Company Plc has disclosed plans to create a logistics initiative to bring down the cost of delivering Nigeria’s fresh agro product exports to various European and other global markets.
The partners disclosed this during a strategic meeting with agro exporters in the presence of farmers and Flour Mills Nigeria Plc, adding that the initiative would seek to ramp up Nigeria’s export in this category to 800 tonnes per day.
The move, according to the organisations, is in response to the challenges faced by Nigerian exporters, which have diminished their competitiveness in the international market while forcing agro products to rot away between farm gates and the market places.
Lamenting the bottlenecks created by government agencies which have destroyed the agro export business while lots of efforts to bring a change had not yielded results, the Managing Director of ABX World, Captain John Okakpu, said the organisations had resolved to move ahead with their own solutions.
Okakpu said, “We have decided to take a different turn on how we reduce the logistic cost; we have an alternative solution, while waiting for the government that will, at least, take us off the ground.
“Our people are suffering and we really need to engage the government to review some of the policies with regards to export. The logistic cost we have now is quite reasonable and I believe within the next two months, it is going to explode and it is going to get better and I am going to assure you that we are here to stay. Our ultimate goal is to do about 600 tonnes to 800 tonnes every day.”
On the readiness of SAHCO, the Managing Director, Basil Agboarumi, said the company foresaw the need for adequate facilities to ensure the preservation of agro-products for export.
He said SAHCO had, in the last five years, invested huge sums of money in building modern facilities now ready for the export projects.
“Recently, we made an investment in buying a modern scanning machine which I just signed yesterday for the machines to come in. So talking about being prepared, I can tell you that we had prepared for a long time and we were just waiting for a day like this to come. That is why as a company, we are happy to partner ABX World to drive this vision,” Agboarumi added.
