Nigeria’s Export-Import Bank NEXIM announced that it had earmarked a minimum of N1bn to be disbursed to targeted export-oriented projects in the Small and Medium Enterprise sector for every state of the federation.
The bank expressed the hope that this fund would encourage crowdfunding investments and promote regional industrialization and economic development.
NEXIM’s Managing Director and Chief Executive, Mr Abba Bello, revealed this on Tuesday in Akure, Ondo State.
The bank and its continental counterpart, African Export-Import Bank, also announced that it had earmarked the $10m as a project preparation fund for supporting the pre-operational phase of project cycles.
According to Bello, this fund will help increase the pipeline of bankable projects towards addressing the problem of poor access to funds, particularly among SMEs.
He added that the fund was expected to help states benefit from the opportunities provided by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.
He said, “As you may all be aware, the AfCFTA, which commenced in January 2021, comes with enormous benefits, including a borderless market of about 1.2 billion people, with a combined GDP of about $3.4tn.
It, therefore, offers our SMEs, particularly those engaged in cross-border trade, the opportunity to increase their sales under a more liberal market condition.
“This scheme also seeks to corporatise and onboard our informal exporters into the formal sector, and through this capture the huge volume of informal trade which has been estimated at four times the value of recorded trade.”
The country’s Export Development Bank, NEXIM, is at the forefront of promoting economic diversification to create jobs and earn foreign exchange.
