By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC) has concluded plans to expedite action on early completion of Vehicle Transit Areas (VTAs) across the Inland Dry Ports (IDPs) to promote the country’s non-oil sector.
The Executive Secretary and Chief Executive of NSC, Mr Akutah Pius, disclosed this in an interactive session with journalists in Aba, Abia State, noting that the plan was to promote seamless exportation of cargoes from the dry ports or hinterland to the seaports.
He explained that VTA is a public rest area located off the highway designed to provide temporary rest locations for truck drivers and other service providers within a designated community.
According to him, the facilities in a VTA include a petrol station, motel, restaurants, mechanic workshops, fire station, police post, automated cargo tracking system, and banks among others
Mr Akutah further disclosed that the federal government had given a marching order for the port economic regulator to expedite action on the completion of dry port projects at designated locations across the country.
This could help further boost the country’s non-oil sector which experienced a growth of 2.80 per cent in real terms during the first quarter 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This growth rate was 0.02 percentage points higher than the same quarter in 2023, but 0.28 percentage points lower than Q4 2023.
Key drivers in the first quarter of 2024 included Financial and Insurance (Financial Institutions), Information and Communication (Telecommunications), Agriculture (Crop Production), Trade, and Manufacturing (Food, Beverage, and Tobacco), all contributing to positive GDP growth.
In real terms, the non-oil sector contributed 93.62 per cent to the nation’s GDP in Q1 2024, which was slightly lower than the 93.79 per cent recorded in Q1 2023 and the 95.30 per cent recorded in Q4 2023.
