More federal agencies sign-up, as Lagos Marriott Hotel hosts first aviation, cargo and export conference in Nigeria

By YANGE IKYAA

The newly opened Lagos Marriott Hotel will play host to the first AviaCargo event in Nigeria, the hotel’s management has said, even as more Federal Government agencies are signing up to attend the conference.

The upscale Marriot was opened to the public in May 2021 and, with 250 rooms located in the heart of Ikeja GRA near the airport, it is well positioned to host aviation events.

These words of confirmation were spoken by Chike Ogeah, who is the managing director of Macfolly Hospitality Limited, the owners of Lagos Marriott, when he led the organisers round the function suites of the hotel.

He also assured that Lagos Marriott is allied to the aviation sector and looks forward to hosting more aviation conferences and welcomes Chinet AviaCargo event to Lagos Marriott.

“Aviation and Cargo are part of the heritage of the owners of this hotel and we are happy to be a part of this maiden edition,” he said.

As more stakeholders continue to sign up for the conference, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), the apex body in charge of promoting export in Nigeria, will also be participating in the two-day event. The agency said they will be making a presentation on how exporters can be assisted to do more through aviation.

NEPC insists it is at the heart of all projects to lift AviaCargo in Nigeria, and the gazetting of four airports as export processing zones brings to fore the importance of the Nigerian Export Processing Zones Authority NEPZA to the growth of AviaCargo in Nigeria.

NEPZA has also confirmed it will be at CHINET to showcase the opportunities available to investors at the airports. Together, NEPC and NEPZA will be joining the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and Ethiopian Airlines as major partners of the first AviaCargo event in Nigeria.

The organizers of CHINET Lagos have confirmed that the two leading aviation, cargo and logistics companies in Nigeria, NAHCO and SAHCO, will be major players at this event, along with many airlines, logistics and global financial service companies. This event, the first of its kind, is coming up holding between August 25 and 26 in Lagos.

Since 1935, aviation has been growing in Nigeria, and with so many airlines and airports, it is expected to contribute more to the nation’s economy.

The conveners of this forthcoming event, ATQNews, a global Pan African travel news organisation, says that the conference is long overdue, adding further that “Nigeria is a country with over 200 million resourceful people depends a lot on imports this has been eroding the national wealth, and that a lot of airlines bring freighters daily to the country and most of them fly out empty.

“In order to change this dysfunctional scenario, Nigeria needs to export more, and aviation should be the key to increasing exports.”

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.

This is due to the organization’s belief that “as the importance of oil wanes, the value and volume of non-oil export should be growing and aviation should be driving it.”

The conference in view, which will have an exhibition segment, will 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 will discuss the reasons why Nigeria’s airlines and airport systems have not delivered the best possible outcomes for aviation in Nigeria.

The second section, which is on cargo, will cover presentations and panel discussions on the cargo and logistics value chain, the challenges of scale and the opportunities available.

Then, the third part will be on export, focusing on how to scale up Nigeria’s export capacity, remove impediments and improve business access or market penetration globally.
There will also be a support session on “Insurance and Financing of Aviation, Cargo and Export in Nigeria.”

At the end of the two-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 exports 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” said Ikechi Uko, who is the publisher of ATQNews, organisers of the event.