The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has started working on six priority service sectors for export to other countries. This is part of the Council’s efforts to cue into the government’s drive to deepen diversifcation considering the drop in oil earnings in the last two years.
The Assistant Director, Product Development Department, NEPC, Mr. Arnold Jackson, in an interview weekend said the government is looking towards the Information and Communication Technology, education, financial services and entertainment services sectors to diversify the economy.
According to him, there are other emerging sectors that will join in the crusade as time goes on including logistics and tourism which he noted, had also been discovered as having huge potential for earning foreign exchange for Nigeria.
In his submission, Jackson said the listed six sectors, have been marked down from 13 major non-oil services, which also have 64 sub sectors.
Before now, the council had examined all the 13 major services and developed a strategy to harness the benefits, in partnership with the Commonwealth.
He said “We are looking at services export holistically. In services export, there are 13 major services and 64 sub sectors. But we look at the areas where we have comparative advantage, which are Information Communication and Technology, education, financial services and entertainment,” said the NEPC assistant director.
“We’ll also look at the emerging sectors such as the logistics and tourism. We are trying to streamline the sector to concentrate on the important ones, so that when we finish, we can have a clearer picture and take on other sectors. We have identified those four priority sectors and those two emerging sectors.”
He did not however give details on how the diversification programme will be driven to maturity.
