Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM) has fixed December as the deadline for the closure for the $60 million private placement aimed to fast-track the Sea link project.
Robert Orya, it’s managing director noted that “The sea link project is very much on course.
You know NEXIM is facilitating the setting up of a shipping line for West and Central Africa region.
There is an ongoing private placement to raise about $60 million. That private placement would have closed last December, but some countries that were engulfed with Ebiola disease, countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea requested that they should not be left out.
So, we have to re-open that private placement and it will now close by December.
But in order not keep the traders waiting; we are coming out with a pilot scheme.
We have contacted some ship owners to build for us a ship.
We have met with blue chips company and we have been able to determine the volume of goods they moved between West Africa and North Central and the frequency of the movement.
We have signed an MoU with these ship owners. They are coming out with their ship this month or latest October so that they can be able to move goods while our private placement will also continue”, Orya told New telegraph in Abuja.
He said that members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) countries have also invited all ministers of transport for a meeting in November to brief them on Sealink project.
As part of effort towards boosting regional trade and alleviating the problems of poor maritime transport infrastructure, the NEXIM in collaboration with other stakeholders facilitated the establishment of a regional shipping company (the sealink project), which would own and operate ocean going vessels for movement of goods and passengers within the west and central African sub-regions.
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