Shippers Council Pledges Collaboration With Traders To Tackle Intra-Border Trade Bottlenecks

By Rahanetu Abuh

Harboursandport.com: Lagis- October 22, 2024: Nigeria Shippers Council, NSC, has made a commitment to work with cross-border traders to address the difficulties associated with trading across the border.

BACCIMA President, Alhaji Yahaya Oladiran Idris, flanked on the right by Assistant Director, Trade Services of Nigerian Shippers Council, NSC, Adora Nwonu and others at the event.

Assistant Director, Trade Services of the Nigerian Shippers Council, NSC, Mrs. Adora Nwonu, who represented the Council, gave the pledge at the Trade Facilitation West Africa, TFWA, program that took place in Lagos.

Nwonu said that the regular support of women and young traders, as well as addressing obstacles in intra-border trade, is part of the Council's ongoing efforts.

She said, "This is something that we do on a regular basis. Supporting women and supporting traders, we are ensuring that bottlenecks to trade are removed."

Speaking on the Council's operations of Border Information Centre, BIC, she noted that they have these centers at some important communities like Seme, Mfum which is at the border between Cross River and Cameroon, Illela in Sokoto, and Jibia in Katsina. 

She also disclosed that Shippers Council has the intention of establishing other centres at Idioroko and at other heavily trafficked borders.

According to her, the main purpose of creating these BICs is to promote trade. Therefore, the Shippers Council has taken on the role of supporting the facilitation of trade within borders by collaborating with merchants to eliminate trade obstacles.

She stated that the feedback received from a participant of the six-week training with the theme: "Training of Small Scale Cross Border Traders in Nigeria," was positive, as she learnt about the significant benefits the training provided to the trainees.

The NSC representative also emphasised that, in this instance, they can clearly observe the impact of resilience and grace between the organizers and partners.

"I just spoke to a lady who sat around me, and she said that the training was okay. She in fact, applauded and testified that she has never seen anything as beneficial as the training. 

"We like partnerships that work at the top because a lot of time, people say when partners promise, oftentimes they don't deliver or, we do not see it, but in this case, grace and resilience were seen in it," she asserted. 

Partners of the training program include The World Bank, European Union, the Government of Denmark, Economic Community of West Africa States, ECOWAS, amongst others.