The Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) on Thursday trained no fewer than 70 women entrepreneurs in Enugu on product packaging and labelling of goods for the international market.
The South East regional coordinator of the NEPC, Mr Arnold Jackson, said that the training was in line with the women development programme of the council.
Jackson said that the workshop was organised for women entrepreneurs comprising NACCIMA Women and African Women’s Entrepreneurship Programme (AWEP).
He said that it was gratifying that the training was coming at a time the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) was coming into force.
The coordinator said that the ACFTA would provide a huge market where no fewer than 1.2 billion people would interact with goods from the continent.
He urged the participants to take advantage of African free market to boost their standard of living.
Jackson said that women are a critical aspect of the diversification policy of the Federal Government, and the council would do everything to empower them.
“The idea of this training is to take them through the basic principles of labelling and packaging, so that their goods will meet international standard,” he said.
Jackson said that the women entrepreneurs were already doing well, and their products could compete favorably with others from parts of the country.
“We have women development programmes and a unit in NEPC that specifically deals with issues of women in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and export.
“The potentials are there and we cannot underrate what these women are doing. I marveled when I saw some of their products and I wonder what will happen if we expose them more,’ he said.
Jackson urged the participants to take advantage of the workshop to prepare for the task ahead, especially when the African common market would open in January 2021.
In a presentation, the Founder, Ample Foods, Mrs Aisha Ime-James, said that the women must get it right for their products to flourish in the international market.
Ime-James said that much was happening on the international scene, and Nigerian women had the potential to compete in the global market.
Also, the National Vice President, AWEP, Mrs Tessy Igweani, said that they needed to get more women to join the export market.
Igweani said that though funding was a major problem facing the women, such challenge could be overcome if they could form clusters.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the workshop was ‘Packaging and Labelling of Products as a tool in Market Penetration Strategy’. (NAN)
