The first trade shipment of Nigeria’s hair products to Kenya, which is under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) came as a success for Nigeria. This was done by Lucky Fibres, a member company of Tolaram Group located in Lagos that manufactures different products including hair products, carpets and rugs.
Nonetheless, the shipment had a short time waiting period due to some documentation problems. According to Abdullahi Maiwada, who the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) appointed as the national public relations officer, this particular delay arose because there were discrepancies in the description of the cargo and the export declaration did not give correct figures of the said cargo. This caused a delay of 24 hours on the shipment.
“Documentation in the exporter’s declaration was the main problem faced.” said Maiwada. “But after the necessary revisions were made in the documentation to meet the acceptable levels of the documentation, there were no further complications regarding the shipment.”
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was inaugurated in 2021 and aims at creating a single market for goods and services for all the 54 African Union member countries. This is purported to be one of the largest free trade zones in the world, with great prospects for intra African trade. The shipment to Kenya is Nigeria’s first export to the country under the AfCFTA agreement although it is the second such export under the agreement.
In view of the new avenues of trade Muda Yusuf, who is the CEO of the Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), pointed out that Africa is free to trade with a market comprising over 1. 5 billion people which gives the opportunity to businesses to grow and enhance their competitiveness. He encouraged businesses to be creative and use better logistics to maximize the benefits of the deal but also called for the need to maintain appropriate long-term economic conditions and government intervention.
“Those who will be able to construct or upgrade their production facilities will gain from lowering operation costs, lowering the cost per unit and will even be able to reach other parts of the world which are outside Africa,” says Yusuf. He has also put emphasis on the need for better availability of basic infrastructure such as transport and payment so that trade between African countries would be more efficient.
Economists including Paul Alaje of SPM Professionals have predicted that trade ties between Nigeria and Kenya could increase productivity and employment in both nations with a positive ripple effect on the continent of Africa.
Nigerian experts who have studied AfCFTA’s prospects believe that more attention should be paid to the development of small and medium productive sectors to enable them compete on other markets including the East African regional market. Factors such as the conducive business environment, improved infrastructure and proper logistics management is believed to be fundamental in the realization of AfCFTA objectives.
