The Executive Director/CEO of the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Segun Awolowo, has assured that given the steps being taken to improve the non-oil exports, Nigeria will exit its dependence on crude oil revenue in ten years.
He made the declaration while briefing correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Friday.
The NEPC boss said in the next decade, Nigeria can get $30 billion in terms of non-oil export notwithstanding the effect of the current Covid-19 pandemic.
According to him, We cannot run an economy that 90 per cent of our earnings is from crude oil. It is just not working; and that is what we are seeing throughout the years when we went into the first recession when the world oil prices stood worldwide.
While noting the changing world dynamics, he said: We need to move again from just raw materials, we need to look at the entire value chain and that is where you create jobs and that is where you earn more money.
He added: But more importantly, we must just continue, we must increase production and productivity all across the two sectors that the zero-oil plan is postulating for the country and then we get out of it.
Acknowledging the presidents support to NEPC and the non-oil export sector, he recalled that the non-oil exports sector was experiencing challenges, especially with the basic incentive, the Export Expansion Grant (EEG) being suspended, with over N350 billion in unpaid EEG claims.
