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Ebuka Daniel
The Nigeria Commodity Exchange is wooing farmers, traders as well as local and foreign investors into its trading platform to enable them take advantage of an organized system of price discovery.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the NCX, Zaheera Baba-Ari, disclosed this while speaking at a capacity building workshop for commodity exchange stakeholders.
The workshop is part of the effort by NCX towards mobilizing to synergize with relevant agencies to actualize the Independence Day directive of President Muhammadu Buhari to relevant government agencies on rising food prices
She said by bringing stakeholders into the trading platform of the NCX, it will help to improve the livelihood of the farmers, increase economic productivity and create employment for Nigerians, especially in the Small and Medium scale Enterprises sector of the economy.
This, she added would help in boosting the nation’s Gross Domestic Product.
She said through an organised trading platform, the NCX would guarantee the commercially viable procurement of required volumes of high-quality commodities at the best market prices.
On the President’s mandate on rising food prices, she said the NCX will partner with sister agencies of government towards the actualization of the directive.
Buhari had directed government agencies such as NCX, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and National Food Reserve Agency, to put heads together to ameliorate the rising domestic food prices and general inflationary trend in the nation’s commodity trading sector.
Baba-Ari said the Exchange is very much ready to partner with sister agencies of government towards the actualisation of the presidential directive.
She said, “NCX Management intends to reach out to the afore-mentioned agencies and others with a view towards creating a common platform to establish synergies to meet the Presidential mandate.
“I hereby call on domestic and international investors with interest in relevant segments of the country’s agro-commodity trading sector to link up with NCX to develop their business in Commodity Export, Trading, Warehousing, Collateral Management, Logistics, Financing, to name but a few.
“Needless to say, the Presidential mandate highlights opportunities for investors in the ecosystem that they can take advantage of in the immediate, medium and long term.
State and Local Governments located in the country’s major production areas of commercially viable agro-commodities are also encouraged to link up with NCX in order to boost the fortunes of their indigenes.
“In the same vein, major commodity groups and associations across the country are hereby called upon to partner with NCX as a means of enhancing their operations.”
In his comments, the Kano State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Barrister Ibrahim Mukhtar
said that NCX provides the opportunity to trade in commodities in any part of the country.
He also said the Exchange has been able to provide an efficient platform for price discovery for investors.
Mukhtar added that the NCX will also improve the socio economic well being of the indigenes of Kano State by providing the platform to play in the various sectors of the Exchange operations.
He urged them to take advantage of the NCX to improve their economic fortunes.
