Zenith Bank Showcases Nigeria’s Potential

For the seventh time consecutively, Nigeria’s biggest bank by market capitalisation, Zenith Bank Plc, on Wednesday, July 20, 2022 held its Annual International Trade Seminar on Non-Oil Export, a laudable project that it commenced in 2015 to showcase the expansive opportunities in the non-oil export with a huge value chain.

The seminar, which was a hybrid of physical and virtual event, attracted high net-worth individuals, stakeholders and experts from Nigeria and abroad, especially investors keen about opportunities in Africa’s largest economy – who consider Zenith a dependable source.

The seminar could not have come at a more opportune time given the uptrend in promoting the non-oil export sub-sector since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) introduced the RT200 FX programme in February 2022.

The “RT200 FX Programme”, which stands for the “Race to US$200 billion in FX Repatriation,” is aimed at getting $200 billion in Foreign Exchange (FX) repatriation over the next 3-5 years, based on stipulated guidelines. According to CBN, “The RT200 FX Programme is a set of policies, plans and programmes for non-oil exports that will enable the country to attain its lofty yet attainable goal of US$200 billion in FX repatriation, exclusively from non-oil exports, over the next 3-5 years”.

To ensure seamless implementation towards target deliverables, the RT200 FX Programme has the following five (5) key anchors: Value-Adding Exports Facility, Non-Oil Commodities Expansion Facility, Non-Oil FX Rebate Scheme, Dedicated Non-Oil Export Terminal and Biannual Non-Oil Export Summit. Each of these anchors represents a channel of implementation that tackles every applicable aspect and the signs have started showing.

Zenith Bank is among the deposit money banks that have keyed into the initiative to promote awareness of the scheme and organize their own programmes in line with the CBN’s 5th anchor of the scheme which is conducting non-oil forums and workshops with appropriate themes to address the subject-matter. The Zenith Bank’s 7th Annual Edition of the Zenith Bank International Trade Seminar themed “Unlocking Opportunities in Nigeria’s Non-Oil Export Business”, was considered apt as it addressed bottlenecks affecting non-oil exports. This underlined the emphasis byf the bank’s management to make the Seminar a problem-solving event rather than a mere talk-show. The Group Managing Director, Ebenezer Onyeagwu, explained this in his address where he drew attention to the vast opportunities in the non-oil export encompassing a huge value chain.

The Founder and Chairman, Zenith Bank Plc, Jim Ovia, who advised the Federal Government on the need to deep-dive into non-oil exports, noted that intellectual capital and other aspects of products manufacturing, telecommunications, information technology are very valuable to the growth of Nigerian economy but grossly underexploited. He buttressed this with the fact that the GDP contribution from oil wells was only about 11 percent and the balance came from services and other aspects of the economy. “Perhaps we need to deep-dive into non-oil exports” he said at the event.

Some participants outside the country who expressed delight