Nigeria's non-oil export for 2009 has been estimated at $1.4 billion, even as the losses through smuggling of products to other countries were relatively five times this figure.The Acting Executive Director, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) Aliyu Mohammed Lawal, who disclosed this to LEADERSHIP however added that it was indicative that by the third quarter of 2008, the export figure may have surged to around $1.8 billion.The NEPC boss who frowned at the country's continued over dependence on Petroleum Export as the major foreign exchange earner, opined that no country survived by depending only on one export product.

"If you look at our dependence on oil, no country will depend on a mono-product to survive. If tomorrow the oil is not there, we must go back to the non-oil sector, he said, noting that 95 per cent of the nation's revenue was dependent on oil. Lawal, therefore, enjoined all the sectors of the economy including the ministries of solid minerals, agriculture and other stakeholders to work together in harmony to ensure that President Umaru Yar'Adua's 7-point agenda was actualised, especially in the areas of employment creation, income generation foreign exchange earnings and wealth creation."

According to him, increasing the country's industrial growth rather than importing foreign goods, as earlier advocated by the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Chief Achike Udenwa, was very reasonable.He added that the focus of the present administration was value addition, with a view to improving the prices of the nation's commodities abroad, even as he noted that 80 per cent of the products were primary, finished or semi-finished products.

While stating that government was giving another opportunity to the local manufacturers because of its commitment to value addition, Lawal pointed out: "most of the exports we do at the moment, especially within the ECOWAS region, are manufactured products, ranging from pharmaceutical products, cosmestics, toiletries; we have food, plastic products, just to mention a few."According to him, the nation would move forward considerably this year 2009, despite the nation's economic predicament.