US Urges Nigeria To Address Power Supply Issues

The Counsellor for Economic Affairs in the United States Embassy in Nigeria, Mr Perry Ball has emphasised the need for Nigeria to critically address the issues of power to reduce the cost of production and enhance productivity.

Mr Ball who made the call at the embassy’s monthly briefing on “overview of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and Recent Bilateral Trade Data” said that Nigeria needs to find ways to bring the production cost of power down, taking care of little things that increase its production costs.

He urged the country to take advantage of the AGOA to export value added products to the U.S., pointing out that sub-saharan Africa exported products worth 74.2 billion dollars to the US in 2011 with Nigeria accounting for 33.7 billion dollars, mainly through crude oil supplies.

According to him, out of the 5 billion dollars sub-Saharan Afica non-oil exports in 2011, Nigeria contributed 0.45 per cent or 140 million dollars and added that sub-Saharan African non-oil exports to the US have trippled from 1.6 billion dollars  in 2001 to 5 billion dollars in 2011, a 20 per cent increase over 2010.

The non-oil exports included apparel, certain footwear, automobiles and auto parts, leather products, sunglasses, glas fibres, salt, animal and vegetable fats, beverages, wines, fruit juice, coffee and tea extracts.

Others are cocoa paste and cocoa powder, cassava, vegetables, fruits, nuts, cut flowers, baskets, hats and essential oils

Said Ball: “You have access to the most generous free trade agreement, you have got the largest market and that is all that you’re doing there are value added areas I think Nigeria can explore other than crude oil”.

He explained that value added meant “a substantial input of energy into that product, get the power right and you get to raise living conditions, create jobs and raise the purchasing power,” stressing that Nigeria ought to take advantage of large market opportunities to trade in value added products.

The counsellor noted that top US suppliers of mainly crude oil were Nigeria and Angola with 33.7 billion dollars and 13.5 billion dollars respectively while South Africa had 9.5 billion dollars, mainly precious stones and metals, vehicles and parts, iron and steel.

Gabon, he added, had 4.5 billion dollars, mainly crude oil and chad with 3.1 billion dollars, mainly crude oil.

Shedie Okpara