The Director Common of the World Commerce Organisation, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has mentioned non-compliance with worldwide Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, SPS, necessities is why Nigeria’s Cowpeas and Sesame seeds export face rejection within the world market.
Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former Minister of Finance, disclosed this in Abuja on the latest launch of seven commerce help programmes initiated by the WTO-ITC in collaboration with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, NEPC.
She said that well being and security inspections of Nigeria’s cowpeas and sesame exports confirmed that pesticide residue ranges had been almost double past the utmost limits from 2019 to 2021.
In line with her, Nigeria could lose its place because the world’s producer and client of cowpeas, and the identical goes for Sesame if nothing is completed concerning the well being and security considerations.
“Nigeria is the world’s largest producer and client of cowpeas. Sesame is primarily an export crop, and Nigeria is the world’s fourth-leading producer, exporting to the EU, Türkiye, Japan, South Korea and different Asian markets.
“Nonetheless, Nigerian cowpea and sesame exports have more and more confronted rejections in a number of vacation spot markets as a result of non-compliance with worldwide SPS necessities.”
“Nigeria accounts for over a 3rd of Japan’s sesame imports – however well being and security inspections through the previous few years have discovered cases the place pesticide residue ranges had been almost double the utmost residue limits permissible from 2019 to 2021”, she said.
