The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria is cooperating with the Standard Organization of Nigeria to construct an office at its cargo village where it will verify farm produce and other products ready for export from Nigeria.
The farm products will be accepted by destination countries with this certification with a goal to increase the amount of items exported so that more countries will be confident in Nigerian products.
This came to light on Tuesday when the managing director of the agency, Mr. Kabir Mohammed, escorted members of the FAAN-established Aviacargo Committee on a tour of the organization’s facilities at the SON headquarters in Lagos.
The Coordinator of the Aviacargo committee, Ikechi Uko, discussed the significance of SON in growing Nigeria’s exports and claimed that while the country has decent products and the required regulatory and certification bodies, branding and promotion are lacking.
He claimed that although the Nigerian government had invested in SON, there was little evidence of it there.
“We must spread the word about SON’s initiatives and reliability. Nigeria has the items, but the branding is bad. Markets are just waiting for these products; all we need to do is find them.”
According to Uko, Nigeria is the continent’s top manufacturer of most items. However, many destination countries are rejecting these goods because they do not match their certification requirements, and this is preventing Nigeria from expanding its export market.
SON’s Director of Laboratory Services, Mr. Richard Adewunmi, stated in a speech that the association with FAAN was crucial since Nigerian product certification is still crucial given the need to sell the nation’s products on a global scale.
He claimed that while SON is internationally approved and that, for example, the training requirements are identical everywhere, “we need more partnerships with other countries to enhance our certified products.”
