Regardless of the shift in the original date scheduled for this year’s Nigerian Maritime Expo (NIMAREX), the NIMAREX 2015 Planning Committee has said that preparation was on top gear to make this year’s edition a huge success.
The Secretary, NIMAREX 2015 Planning Committee, Barr. Osuala Emmanuel Nwagbara who disclosed this in an exclusive interview with Primetime Reporters at the NIMAREX Secretariat in Lagos on Thursday also said that many companies both within and outside the country had indicated their preparedness to attend this year’s event.
Nwagbara who stated that in accordance with the tradition of NIMAREX, the Committee was looking forward to having the Former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubarkar (rtd.) to chair this year’s event which has as its theme, “ Nigeria: Regenerating Economic Growth through the Maritime Sector”.
According to him,” we are working very hard; a lot of companies have shown interests in sponsoring this year’s NIMAREX event. We believe that this year’s edition will be different. We are bringing quite a lot of things on the table. We will have CEOs Roundtable where issues affecting the Maritime industry will be looked at from different perspectives. Whether you are a financier, whether you are a government agency in charge of security at the ports, whether you are like NPA (Nigerian Ports Authority), the Landlord of the ports, then the terminal operators, they should tell us what the problems are that we are not getting right”.
“Get the CEOs of government agencies, ministries, big companies, they come on board, they discuss these issues and then we build on that. We won’t just go home. This is something different we want to do this year. When these issues are placed on the front burner in the NIMAREX classrooms, then we have to organize series of workshops as a build up for the next NIMAREX event where these issues will be dissected alive and solutions given to the government and then we work with the government to ensure they are implemented”.
“We are expecting the whole world to Nigeria because NIMAREX is a trade platform where people or companies like the oil companies that have capital to invest will meet the in-country operators that will have the opportunity to offer their potentials”.
“For instance, companies outside Nigeria that have the finances and are looking for investment opportunity in the maritime sector in Nigeria will find such opportunity in partnership with Nigerians and they can build ship yards here for repair of ships, for building of ships and other related industries like I just mentioned the iron and steel”.
While admitting that although NIMAREX as it was known today was an initiative of the Nigerian Indigenous Ship owners Association (NISA) in 2011, it had grown to become a project of the Nigerian Maritime Industry.
“It is an international event that holds every year where Nigeria exposes her maritime potentials to the entire world. We show we have potentials for ship building and ship repairs, we show we have generative industry potentials, that we have potentials to produce iron and steel which is the necessary raw material for building ships”, he said.
On the date of the event, Nwagbara who is also the Principal Partner, Maritime and Commercial Law Chambers disclosed that the event which was earlier scheduled for the 29th of March, 2015 to 1st of April, 2015 would now hold between the 26th and 29th of April 2015 adding that the shift in date was necessitated by the shift in the election time table in Nigeria by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 2015 general elections.
