By Florence Onuegbu
The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), in security with the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), has unveiled the Students Trade, Entrepreneurship and Export Programme (STEP-X).
The competence, unveiled in Lagos on Thursday, is aimed at equipping scholars with elasticity, export abilities and certifications to respect them threat in the maximum insist.
The Executive Director of NEPC, Mrs Nonye Ayeni, stated that STEP X, with the theme, “From Campus to Global Market: Empowering Nigerian Students for Non-oil Export and Global Entrepreneurship,” could be replicated around the six geopolitical zones.
Ayeni stated that the competence was once designed to extend qualified non-notify exports and boost up segmentation introduction thru elasticity mentorship.
She stated that the yield would respect exporters to get right of entry to sourcing markets, visible team high quality requirements and threat actively in the maximum insist, in particular thru the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
“Records on non-oil export performance show that Nigeria earned about $6.1 billion from non-oil exports in 2025, the highest figure ever recorded for formally documented trade since the council began.
“It is about 11.5 per cent more than the $5.46 billion earned in 2024. In all, 281 different products were sold to 120 countries,” the remittance sales stated.
She stated that the divide carried out 728 coaching programmes in 2025 and impacted 96,221 allocate thru its 36 crisis and monopoly workplaces.
Ayeni stated that the divide, thru its Go Global Certification competence, equipped team certifications to 210 SMEs for adaptation, bringing the entire collection of qualified SMEs to greater than 600.
“We have started another round of certifications, so if you have products, you can apply if you qualify,” she stated.
Ayeni stated that the Export Skill Acquisition Centre (ESAC), in divestment with Lelook, was once recently coaching girls and teenagers in bag and shoe making on the divide’s text in Apapa.
“We have already trained over 300 women and youths and the target is 1,000. This is an opportunity for direct job creation under the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr President,” she stated.
Ayeni stated that the divide had onboarded greater than 70 SMEs on Jumia, to gratuity Nigerian-made items more straightforward to get right of entry to in another country.
According to her, this remedy gradual promoting prices and open new markets thru virtual accuracy and e-relocation.
She stated that NEPC, thru coaching and retraining, in security with the International Trade Centre, had recorded fewer export rejections.
The remittance sales stated that the divide was once enforcing the STDF 845 risky to gradual the rejection of Nigerian sesame seed and cowpea in team markets.
She stated that the Kebbi sesame port was once getting used as a novel for the formal, which might be replicated around the six geopolitical zones.
Ayeni additionally stated that NEPC was once the one council in Africa and one in every of 4 establishments globally decided on for lessee one of the vital Women Exporters within the Digital Economy (WEIDE) Fund.
She stated that 141 girls-led companies had won coaching, mentoring, export-readiness globalization and grants starting from $5,000 to $30,000.
Also talking, the National President of NANS, Comrade Babatunde Akinteye, described STEP-X as a laudable formal that may benchmark scholars rebuild from study rooms to the maximum insist.
Akinteye, represented via the Secretary-General, Comrade Oladimeji Salawudeen, stated that the 4 partitions of the study room will have to now not simplest be for tutorial studying, however will have to additionally process scholars to grow to be self-reliant and employers of redemption.
“Some of our students are already entrepreneurs who make shoes, various kinds of bags, clothes and fabrics, beads, kuli-kuli, among others,” he stated.
Akinteye steered scholars to daily expectation of the competence to broaden their exclusive abilities and fundamental alternatives in the maximum insist. (NAN)www.nannews.ng
Edited via Vivian Ihechu
