PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a multinational professional service network, and the United Kingdom (UK) have declared that Nigeria, as a developing country, requires about $100 billion annual investment in all sectors of the all economy in order to achieve optimal economic growth and development.
They say that the most populous country in Africa must grow her economy at 46 percent yearly by attracting both local and foreign investments in key sectors of the economy – manufacturing, extractive industry, agriculture, telecoms, information and technology, among others, in order for her to create huge job opportunities, increase working population and improve on wealth creation.
The two request all states of the federation and Federal Government to work more on ease of doing business and devise more means to generate revenue in order to achieve 46 percent economic growth annually, saying 74.5 percent ($2.5bn) of foreign direct investments into Nigeria in 2015 domiciled in Ogun State because of best ease of doing business indicators, which the state maintains.
Speaking at the Analysis of the State-Level Business Environment in Nigeria organised by the British High Commission, Abuja, PwC in conjunction with Ogun State in Abeokuta, last week, Andrew Nevin, partner/chief economist, PwC, said Nigerian economy was in recession due to poor ease of doing business and exchange rate policy.
Though Nigeria possesses very huge economic potentials that should have been translated into huge wealth and economic opportunities, the inadequate capital expenditure and investment in power, roads and a host of other economic variables that could ease ways of doing business prevented Nigeria from attaining desired economic growth and development, Nevin said.
He said, “If Nigeria must get out recession, increase working population and create more wealth, she needs a 46% growth yearly to progress, $100 billion investment a year to grow at 46%. There must be a significant growth in ease of doing business and exchange rate policy should be favourably stable. 169 in 190 countries rank in ease of doing business is not good.
“If we don’t get ease of doing business improved, we are not going to get new investments, and we will be faced with social catastrophe. In my view, Ogun state should be the best in Nigeria because it has all potentials and markets. 50% of Nigerian economic activities is in Southwest, Ogun and Lagos states dominate it.
“But, Southwest Nigeria should re-brand itself to get it rightful position, ease of doing business should be improved on, they must improve on infrastructure and power ratio. 600 million people in Africa don’t have power, there must be power revolution in Africa, Nigeria can develop small, medium and large-scale mechanisms in power generation and distribution.”
Speaking further on the means to achieve economic prosperity in Ogun, the chief economist at the PwC, urged government in the state to improve on infrastructure, especially in and around industrial hubs in order to improve on tax-based revenue from the areas by increasing number of those resident in the state.
“Ogun State is having best economic performance and good ease of doing business indicators, it must improve on its revenue through tax payment. 994 people in this country pay N10 million and above as tax every month in Nigeria and only two of them live in Ogun State, while 992 live in Lagos state,” he said.
But, Laure Beaufils, British Deputy High Commissioner to Nigeria, said “United Kingdom believes in the potentials Nigeria possesses and what she can do to improve her economy”, adding that Nigeria must seriously work on ease of doing business “because it’s key to investment, growth, jobs and entire socio-economic development.”
While revealing that global investment record shows that out of $3.4 billion foreign direct investments (FDIs) that came to Nigeria in 2015, a total of $2.5 billion investments, representing 74.5% domiciled in the state, Beaufils noted that Governor Ibikunle Amosun challenged the UK to work on what can be done to better the record.
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