Nigeria: FG to partner Binance, Talent City in establishing virtual free zone in West Africa

The Nigerian Government announced plans to establish virtual free trade zones for service exports alongside Binance and Talent City.

This was disclosed by the Managing Director of the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) Prof Adesoji Adesugba, in a statement signed by Mr. Martins Odey, Head, Corporate Communications, NEPZA.

Adesugba noted that the partnership was necessary after holding meetings with officials of the two firms on Friday in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, according to NAN.

What NEPZA is saying

NEPZA said the partnership when agreed would birth a virtual free zone similar to the one in Dubai, citing that the vision would be centered on expanding the frontiers of innovations in the operations and management of free zones in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.

“We seek to break new grounds to widen economic opportunities for our citizens in line with the mandate of the authority, the directive of the honorable minister, and the economic development agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Binance was represented at the parley by Nadeem Ladki, its Executive Director, Regional Strategic Partnerships and Sameera Kimatrai, Binance Senior Legal Counsel, while Luqman Edu, Chief Executive of Talent City and Engr Sikiru Lawal, NEPZA’s Director of Projects and Procurement

What you should know

• Nairametrics reported in June that Binance  announced that it added 12 Nigerian banks to its Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platform in a bid to reduce the possibility of disruptions during the process of P2P transactions.
• Binance added 21 banks across the African continent; however, 12 or 57% of those banks are Nigerian banks which include: Access Bank, Ecobank, Fidelity Bank, First Bank of Nigeria, FCMB, GTBank, Keystone Bank, Stanbic Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Sterling Bank, Zenith Bank, Union Bank of Nigeria.
• Binance argues that using a specific local bank or e-wallet in the advertisement as a payment method before picking P2P users to transact with, it will reduce the possibility of disruptions since the counterparties can see in advance which bank is the preferred one for you to pay or receive money.