Stakeholders are signing up for the first aviation, cargo and export conference in Nigeria. The event is coming up on August 25th and 26th, 2021 in Lagos. The organisers of the conference said it has earned the support of the Federal Airport Authority (FAAN) and Ethiopian Airlines Cargo along with many airlines, logistics and global financial service companies. The organisers noted that since 1935, aviation has been growing in Nigeria and with so many airlines and airports, it is expected that aviation should and would contribute more to the nation’s economy. The conveners of the event ATQNews, a global Pan African Travel News Organization said the conference was long overdue. “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,” it added. “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 ecosystem 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 convener said. The conference, which would have an exhibition part, would 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 would discuss the reasons why our airlines and airport systems have not delivered the best possible outcomes for aviation in Nigeria. The second section on cargo would be on presentations and panel discussions on the cargo and logistics value chain, the challenges of scale and the opportunities available. The third part would 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. At the end of the 2-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. With this understanding of the Cargo and Export Systems we can integrate our systems by networking and learning from each other as problems shared eventually become problems solved” according to the publisher of ATQNews, the organiser of the event.
