By Chiazo Ogbolu
The Acting Comptroller-General of Customs, Mr Adewale Adeniyi, has urged members of the National Trade Facilitation Committee (NTFC) to be strategic in implementing trade facilitation agreement.
Adeniyi, in a statement in Lagos on Friday urged the committee to take bold decisions to improve Nigeria’s ranking in various indexes.
According to Adeniyi, the NCS has taken some measures in furtherance of its trade facilitation mission, which includes automation of trade procedures.
“Customs has raised the bar with the recent launch of the advanced ruling and the recent migration from fast track 2.0 to the Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) system.
“The AEO is a globally recognised programme introduced by the World Customs Organisation to secure and facilitate global trade,” he said.
The customs boss noted that the committee had played a vital advisory role in all trade-related matters.
“A number of member-countries of the World Trade Organisation have made very good use of this committee.
This committee has no only played a very strong advisory role but has also built a very good report and role in all matters related to trade.
“We will identify such countries, and working with all our stakeholders, I will propose that we also have benchmarking visits to study best practices.
“This is to note what works in those places and what does not work and why our system can also measure up with what they are doing,” he said.
Adeniyi urged members of the committee to be deliberate in their actions in the implementation of the agreement. (NAN)
