The Director-General, Association of Nigerian Exporters, Mr Joseph Idiong, has said the association has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the American Shea Butter Institute on the production of quality products for export.

Speaking in Abuja yesterday, Idiong said the partnership would focus on a train-the-trainers programme.

He stressed the need for adequate training on the production processes of quality products for international markets.

He noted that to produce for export without training was to wallow in the ‘Production-age approach’, not ‘the market-age’.

According to him, export business is the buyer’s market as one must produce to meet the specifications given by the buyer.

On the agricultural sector, he said the association was liaising with international partners for the launch of the ‘Export Farm Scheme’.

“We will launch the scheme to train our members on the farm-fork approach toward export farming.

“We have applied for farmland for our first pilot export farm scheme project,’’ Idiong said.

He said that diversifying the Nigerian economy would require paying more attention to agriculture and value-added manufacturing export.

He said good market penetration and effective packaging are the priority of the association.

It could be recalled that Idiong had advised the Federal Government to design a national export strategy with a bottom-up approach to boost exportation in order to address exportation problems.

He urged that the strategy should be driven by the private sector.

The director-general also advised that government should amend the Nigerian Export Incentives Miscellaneous Act of 1992, which had become obsolete.

He also said there should be incentives to promote the processing of products for export.

He said the national export strategy proposals, prepared by the Commonwealth for Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), recommended that the association should initiate the bottom-up policy. (NAN)