The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) on Friday said the freight forwarding business was affected negatively by the operating environment and some government policies during the year.
The President of the association, Mr Increase Uche, said in Lagos.
According to him, freight forwarders are looking forward to 2020, hoping that the government will come up with policies to ensure a more conducive environment for businesses to grow.
“The freight forwarding environment has not been so friendly to freight forwarders and things have not been so easy right from the beginning of the year, being an election year.
“Businesses were somehow disjointed, government is yet to settle down, and policy issues are yet to assume normalcy.
“On the average, the freight forwarding business did not fare well as a result of all the policies that were not so favourable, which gave rise to an unstable environment that affected our businesses,” he said.
He noted that two issues that were so prominent during the year were the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) and the border closure.
Uche pointed that stakeholders had tried to manage the border closure as managers of the supply chain, believing that the advantages of the border closure far outweighed the disadvantage.
He added that their concerns as regards border closure was its negative effect on members of the association, as most of them were put out of business and some dying out of frustration.
He noted that another issue that affected its members was the closure of the Enugu airport for repairs.
