Mr. Obiora Madu, from MultiMix Export Academy, gave the final paper presentation today. The theme was ‘Trade facilitation, the role of supply chain management’. He started by saying international trade is an indispensable engine of economic growth. He also mentioned that trade expands markets, facilitates competition, increases productivity and disseminates knowledge. Furthermore, he said that ‘Trade Openness’ spurs economic growth and technological progress and economic growth raises living standards. According to him, Countries that have grown fastest have done so with rapid increase in their participation in world trade.
Talking about Trade Facilitation, it aims to make trade procedures as efficient as possible through the simplification and harmonization of documentation, procedures and information flows.
Barriers to trade facilitation:
• Lack of transparency
• Red tape
• Port congestion
• Corruption
• Inadequate transit regimes
• High release and clearance time

Global Supply Chain Management involves a company’s worldwide interest as suppliers rather than simply a local or national orientation. Visibility, velocity and variability is essential to make a supply chain construct work. Visibility of high quality information is becoming the fundamental building block for adaptive supply chain networks. Once organizations overcome the visibility barrier the next step is to increase the velocity of response. This is rapidly becoming the key differentiator in business performance.
The role of ICT in trade facilitation:
• Automated processing  
• Reduce time and increases efficiency
He sited examples of countries who have utilized ICT to facilitate international trade, which include;
Mauritius: Mauritius Trade Net (MTN) which has reduced average time of goods transfer from 4hours to 15 minutes.
Tunisia: The Tunisia Trade Net (TTN) has reduced processing time of trade documents from 18 to 7 days
Singapore: Time savings in Singapore translate into 1% of GDP per year.
This is in sharp contrast to the Nigerian bureaucracy at the ports.
He concluded by saying that there is potential dramatic improvement that can be made in trade clearing process.
Mr. Obiora Madu presented a second paper which was titled ‘Secrets of SMEs success in exporting’.
He started this second paper by saying that the international market is ruthless, selective and fiercely competitive (according to the ITC).
He said that exporting is not a process, not a transaction. From available statistics, only few countries in the world can match Nigeria’s endowment in terms of natural resources. One important point was highlighted, competitive advantage has taken over form comparative advantage.
Benefits of exporting:
• Increased profits
• Additional markets
• Increased product service life cycle
• Challenges facing exporting
• Market access
• Competitiveness
• Capacity to cope with the strenuous demands of the international markets
• Economic rivalry
For any company considering entering the export market, you need to consider some key aspects of your business, which includes; Management expertise, production resources and many more.
At the end of his presentation, he entertained several questions from the audience, which he answered articulately. Unilagfaces.com really want to affirm that Mr. Obiora Madu is certainly a maestro in the International Trade and Export business.

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