Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade (WTO), says Nigerian female entrepreneurs will be given the needed support to boost their businesses in local and international markets.
Okonjo-Iweala gave the assurance during a meeting with Pauline Tellen, minister of women affairs, in Abuja on Wednesday.
She said financial support will be provided through the International Trade Centre (ITC) in collaboration with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC).
“A lot of women already run businesses and they want to access markets. But one of the things they complain about is the quality of their products and access to marketing and how they can sell. So, those two things the WTO actually has the capacity to be able to assist them,” she said.
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Okonjo-Iweala called on female entrepreneurs to be globally competitive and also challenged them to tap into various interventions of government.
“The challenge is on how to assist women entrepreneurs so that they move from the small activity they are doing to the next level and attain the quality that is required to be able to penetrate regional and international market, that is one of the things that WTO can help with,” she said.
Okonjo-Iweala said the global trade is negotiating a round of agreements on e-commerce and rules of trade to ensure a fair and balanced multilateral trading system.
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“The WTO wants to redress inequality through trade, wants to see trade as an engine of economic growth which is what we need during this pandemic,” she said.
Some of the entrepreneurs present at the meeting highlighted challenges of infrastructure, funding, and delay in cargo clearance as some of the setbacks of doing business in Nigeria.
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