The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has called on women entrepreneurs to take advantage of the soon to be enforced African Continental Free Trade Agreement to boost their standard of living.
The South East regional Coordinator of the NEPC, Mr Arnold Jackson made the call on Wednesday in Enugu during a workshop on ‘Packaging and Labelling of Products as a tool in Market Penetration Strategy’.
The workshop was organised by NEPC for women entrepreneurs comprising NACCIMA Women and African Women’s Entrepreneurship Programme (AWEP).
Jackson said that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement would provide a huge market where no fewer than 1.2billion people would interact with goods from the Continent.
He said that women are critical aspect of the diversification policy of the Federal Government, adding that the council would do everything to empower them.
“The idea of this training is to take them through the basic principles of labelling and packaging so that their goods will meet international standards,” he said.
Jackson said that the women entrepreneurs were already doing well, adding that their products could compete favorably with others from other parts of the world.
“We have women development programmes and a unit in NEPC that specifically deals with issues of women in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and export.
“The potentials are there and we cannot underrate what these women are doing. I marveled when I saw some of their products and I wonder what will happen if we expose them more,’’ he said.
Jackson urged the participants to take advantage of the workshop to prepare for the task ahead, especially when the African Common Market would open in January, 2021.
In a presentation, the Founder, Ample Foods, Mrs Aisha Ime-James, said that the women must get it right for their products to flourish in the international market.
Ime-James said that much was happening at the international scene, adding that Nigerian women had the potentials to compete in the global market.
Also, the National Vice President, AWEP, Mrs Tessy Igweani, said that they needed to get more women to join the export market.
Igweani said that though funding was a major problem facing the women, such challenges could be overcome if the women could form clusters.
No fewer than 70 women entrepreneurs from Enugu, attended the training.
