Good day,

I am new to nairaland and here to find individuals interested in collaborating on developing Nigerias export industry.

It deeply saddened me when the true extent of Nigerias failure to develop a fruitful export industry became apparent. A country so rich in resources and talent unable to fully exploit it's true potential is something one cannot only place on the corrupt and dimwhitted heads of our country. We the people must collaborate with like minded individuals in order to construct joint ventures which will slowly but surely put Nigeria on the map as a reliable source for commodities, manufacturing and outsourcing.

With the Naira so weak it is time to abandon or at least reavlaute the existing model of importing Asian and western goods. We must now evaluate what we ourselves have to offer...

I have started a business in London primarily focused on importing West African commodities to be sold at retail and wholesale. The issue is the Western perception of Nigerian produced commodities is that "how do we know it is what you say it is?". I'll give you an example, recently I went in to a hair and beauty products shop to buy some shea butter. In London the going retail rate is around N4-5k for 1kg. As I picked up a tub I realised they were all imported from Ghana, I asked the manager of the shop if he would be interested in the same product but cheaper from Nigeria. To my surprise he laughed and told me "no, my customers wouldn't actually believe it was shea butter if it said imported from Nigeria on it".

If you have any ideas or are into farming, production or manufacturing please let us discuss ways on making exporting better. Or if you would like advice let's chat.

Kind regards

Michael Erewa
Erewa Group