There is no better time than now, to pursue the agenda towards achieving the $1trillion economy, participants in the workshop on the presidential National Single Window Initiative said on Tuesday.
The initiative was launched by President Bola Tinubu in April 2024 to push for the take-off of the National Single Window policy to eliminate all bureaucratic delays in export and import processes to boost trade efficiency and enhance economic growth towards realising Agenda $1trillion economy by 2031.
Participants at the workshop included the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole; and her Marine and Blue Economy counterpart, Mr Gboyega Oyetola; Minister of State for Finance, Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite; Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Dr Zacch Adedeji, and the Managing Director, Nigerian Port Authority (NPA), Dr Abubakar Dantsoho.
Oduwole said the single window project would provide a centralized digital platform for traders to submit, process, and access trade-related documentation, thus eliminating corruption through improved transparency, reducing administrative burdens, and significantly enhancing the ease of doing business in Nigeria.
Minister of Marine and Blue Economy, Gboyega Oyetola said the initiative would significantly reduce the cost of doing business in the country and eliminate sharp practices in trade processes and fast-track the realisation of $1 trillion economy agenda.
Restating the World Bank position on the issue, the Minister said the cost of doing business at Nigerian ports could be up to 40 percent higher than in other West African countries due to delays and administrative bottlenecks, leading to an estimated annual revenue loss of ₦2.5 trillion within the business community.
He was, however, optimistic that the implementation of the Single Window System can enhance efficiency, potentially reducing these costs by at least 25 percent.
“By streamlining operations at the ports, improving transparency, and minimizing delays, the system not only drives cost savings, but also strengthens overall trade facilitation,” the Minister said.
“The cumulative impact across all areas—including reduced costs, enhanced efficiency, and greater transparency—ultimately contributes to the overall ease of doing business,” he added.
He said efforts were on to improve road, rail, and inland waterway links to and from the ports through advanced multimodal connectivity system, to reduce transportation costs, enhance logistics, and boost trade.
The Ministry, in collaboration with the Lagos State Government, he said has cleared the age-long Apapa–Tin Can–Mile 2 traffic for landside operations and provided tugboats, mooring boats, pilot cutters, bollards, and fenders across all port locations for effective seaside operations.
Also, he said maximization of crane productivity has resulted in reduced transit time for vessels and trucks, adding that these led to a reduction in both the vessel and truck turn-around times.
The vessel turn-around-time, he disclosed, went down from an average of seven days to an average of five days, while truck turn-around-time went from an average of 10 days to a few hours, with the ultimate goal bring to make Nigeria the hub of maritime in West Africa.
For the Minister of State for Finance, Dr Uzoka-Anite, the single window initiative would not only enhance ease of doing business in the country, but also attract foreign direct investment.
Citing the experiences of Indonesia the Minister said their initiatives simplified trade, by significantly reducing clearance time from seven to just three days, with traders saving millions of dollars annually through reduced administrative costs and delays.
Also, for Vietnam, he said the initiative enhanced trade efficiency, by streamlining interaction with over 20 government agencies, reducing paperwork, and manual processes.
In Rwanda, the Minister said the initiative resulted in speedier border crossing times, which decreased by 50 percent, thus boosting the country’s trade within the East African Community (EAC).
The Chairman of FIRS, Zacch Adedeji, said the project would contribute hugely to the realization of a $1 trillion economy agenda by the current administration by 2031.
Adedeji said the project represents a pivotal stride in Nigeria’s journey towards economic transformation, pointing out that the country’s trade facilitation processes have long been hampered by a complex web of bureaucratic hurdles, characterized by cumbersome and inefficient procedures.
These, he said, led to significant delays at the ports, increased costs of doing business, and a substantial erosion of Nigeria’s competitiveness in the global marketplace.
The bottlenecks, he noted, resulted in substantial revenue losses to the country, reduction in foreign direct investments, and hindered the full realization of the nation’s economic potential.
By establishing an integrated platform that seamlessly connects all the critical actors, namely seaports, airports, free trade zones, government agencies, financial institutions, and the private sector, Adedeji said the country would be set to revolutionise the way international trade was conducted.
“Now is the moment for Nigeria to establish itself as a leading trade hub on the African continent by implementing a robust and efficient National Single Window system,” Adedeji said.
The Comptroller General of the Nigeria Custom Service, Bashir Adeniyi, who was represented, said the concept was not new to Nigeria, as similar efforts were made in the past, suggesting ways to overcome the challenges that stunted similar efforts in the past.
He identified the challenges to include fragmented technological systems and institutional silos, misaligned stakeholder expectations and inadequate physical and technological infrastructure.
For the current initiative to succeed, Adedeji said Nigeria must embrace a singular purpose backed by unwavering governmental resolve, ensuring that the Single Window was not perceived as the sole mandate, but as a national strategy supported by all stakeholders, including the private sector, financial institutions, and regulatory agencies.
The Managing Director of NPA, Dr Dantsoho, emphasised the need for all stakeholders to work in unity to achieve the goal of the project.
He made reference to the one-stop shop initiative to highlight the need forgovernment agencies to collaborate and work in harmony with zero tolerance for delays in service delivery and timely interventions without bottle necks.
The Head of NSW Secretariat, Mr. Tola Fakolade, said the project would simplify the ways things were being done, adding that the first phase of the project would commence this year with training and testing.
