The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) on Wednesday promised to enhance the competitiveness of ports by reviewing concessioning agreements as well as operational costs in 2019.

The Managing Director of NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usman, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the inauguration of the Harbour Simulation Centre held at Dockyard in Lagos.

According to her, imports should reduce as much as exports increase.

“Our country right now is keen in having high exports. When we have high exports, that would marginally impact on our revenue.

“So we have reduction in revenue which is attributable to increase in exports,” Bala-Usman said.

She urged other maritime operators to train their pilots at the newly inaugurated Simulation Centre to increase their efficiency as well as encourage local content development.

The NPA boss said that continuous training of pilots at the Simulation Centre would change the capacity of the pilots and also reduce the six-hour required for their operations.

“We believe the Simulation Centre is an important thing for Nigerian Ports as it seeks to save foreign exchange and improve on local content.

“Our joint venture partners provided the equipment that are required so we had a form of Corporate Social Responsibility to our partners. That was what informed the setting up of the Simulation Centre,” she said

Bala-Usman said that since the commencement of the training in Nov. 12, 2018, that the centre had been able to train 96 pilot trainees.

She, however, said that the establishment of the Siimulation Centre was a significant milestone for NPA in particular, and the maritime industry in general.

(NAN)