…As NEPC, NEPZA Indicate Interest To Participate
The newly opened Lagos Marriott Hotel is to play host to the First Aviation Cargo event in Nigeria.
The upscale Marriott with 250 rooms located in the heart of Ikeja GRA near the Murtala Muhammed Airport, that is well positioned to host aviation events was opened to the public in May 2021.
The Managing Director of Macfolly Hospitality Limited, the owners of Lagos Marriott, Mr. Chike Ogeah. stated this when he led the organisers of the First Aviation Cargo event round the function suites of the hotel.
He said that Lagos Marriott is allied to the aviation sector and that it looks forward to hosting more aviation conferences and welcomes chinet aviacargo event to Lagos Marriott.
“Aviation and cargo are part of the heritage of the owners of this hotel and we are happy to be a part of this Maiden edition, ” he said.
Meanwhile, more stakeholders are signing up for the First Aviation, Cargo and Export Conference in Nigeria.
The latest stakeholders are the Nigeria Export Promotion Council(NEPC), the apex body in charge of promoting export in Nigeria and the Nigerian Export Processing Zones Authority(NEPZA)
Both entities will be participating in the two-day event and they will also be making a presentation on how exporters can be assisted to do more through aviation.
NEPC is at the heart of all projects to lift Aviacargo in Nigeria and the gazetting of four airports as Export Processing Zones(EPZ)brings to the fore the importance of NEPZA to the growth of aviacargo in Nigeria.
NEPZA will be at chinet to showcase the opportunities available to investors at airports.
NEPC and NEPZA will be joining entities such as the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria(FAAN) and Ethiopian Airlines as major partners of the first aviacargo event in Nigeria.
The two leading aviation cargo and logistics companies in Nigeria Nigerian Aviation Handling Company(NAHCO) Plc and the Skyway Aviation Handling Company(SAHCO)Plc will be major players at the event along with airlines,logistics and global financial service companies.
This,according to the organisers of the event is the first of its kind and it is coming up on August 25– 26,2021 in Lagos.
The organisers recalled that since 1935, aviation has been growing in Nigeria and that with many airlines and airports it is expected that aviation will contribute more to the nation’s economy.
The conveners of the event , ATQ news a global Pan African travel news organisation says that the conference is long overdue.
According to ATQ news in its introductory message, “Nigeria a country with over 200 million resourceful people depends a lot on imports this has been eroding the national wealth. A lot of airlines bring freighters daily to Nigeria and most of them fly out empty. There is therefore a need to change this dysfunctional scenario. Nigeria needs to export more and Aviation should be the key to increasing exports.
“To this end ATQnews seeks to convene an annual conference that brings all potential exporters, cargo managers, logistics firms, airlines, airports, customs and everyone in the aviation and cargo eco-system to chart a pathway that enables Nigerians export more. As the importance of oil wanes, the value and volume of non-oil export should be growing and aviation should be driving it.”
The conference which will have an exhibition part will be broken into three parts over two days; Aviation, Cargo and Exports.
The aviation aspect will have a presentation and panel discussion on ‘Airlines,Airports and Aviation’ experts including airline CEOs,past airport CEOs and aviators will discuss the reasons why airlines and airport systems have not delivered the best possible outcomes for aviation in Nigeria.
The second section on cargo will be a presentations and panel discussions on the cargo and logistics value chain the challenges of scale and the opportunities available.
The third part will be on export; how do we scale our export capacity? How do we remove the impediments and improve our access and market penetration globally.
There will be a support session on insurance and financing of Aviation, Cargo and Export in Nigeria.
According to ATQnews, “At the end of the two-day event we will be leaving the event with enough knowledge about the current aviation situation in Nigeria and its role in growing the economy by driving bigger cargo export from Nigeria.
Publisher of ATQnews, organisers of the event,Mr. Ikechi Uko added that with this understanding of the cargo and export systems .Nigerians can integrate the systems by networking and learning from each other as problems shared eventually become problems solved.
