‘FG needs 5bn dollars to reposition shipping sector’
The Federal Government needs over five billion US dollars to reposition the shipping sector of the maritime industry, the Acting President of the Nigerian Ship-owners Association (NISA), Aminu Umar, has said.
Umar, who is also the owner of Sea Transport Services, disclosed this in an exclusive interview with Daily Trust in Lagos.
He noted that Nigerian investments in the shipping sector is presently at between 300 million and 500 million US Dollars, which is about 20 per cent less than the capacity needed.
According to him, Nigerians participating in the downstream oil and gas sector, particularly those operating the Clean Petroleum Products (CPP) tankers and Dirty Petroleum Products (DPP) tankers, control about 15 to 20 vessels, if not more.
“Averagely, it can be up between 150 million to 200 million US Dollars. This is in the CPP and DPP markets only, which runs the West Africa to Nigeria products. If we look at the upstream market, where you have vessels that provide services like the anchor handling tugs, like the PSVs, if we put it together, we should be talking of 500 million US Dollars in investments done by Nigerians,” he said.
He explained that although this seems to be a very huge investment, but a cursory look at areas to be covered showed that “it is a small amount compared to what needed.”
He added that for Nigerians to be fully in control of trade in the maritime sector, the Federal Government needs to equip NISA members to tune of over one billion US dollars in assets.
“Now that we are talking of about 500 million dollars investment presently, this means that we have just above ten per cent of investment. In the downstream, which is the DPP and CPP,
is Nigerians investment is not up to 20 percent of the total market capacity of what is needed in DPP and CPP. Clean Petrol vessels is the one that brings in petrol, kerosine and JET A1. We are not up to 20 per cent of the total market that is already existing,” Umar said.
He noted that the maritime industry has a lot of potentials, with a lot of opportunities needed for growth, while he also urged the Federal Government to expend more in the sector so that practitioners can take advantage of the opportunities existing in the industry.