Experts wants trade, investments as lifeblood of Nigerian economy

Experts have urged the Nigeria government to work aggressively towards ensuring that Trade, and investments become the lifeblood of Nigerian economy.

The participants raised the concern at the ongoing 23 edition of the Nigeria Economic Summit #NES23. According to them, Nigeria still has several trade inhibitors stopping it from taking full advantage of its over 180 million people and the ECOWAS 350 million market opportunity and beyond. They also said that several unsound policies in the past have driven trade and investments underground.

Chiedu Osakwe, head of Nigerian Office for Trade Negotiation, said “We must as a matter of urgency ensure a simultaneous facilitation of trade by opening our borders and at the same time establishing a World Trade Organisation’s rules-based treaty to remedy infrastructure and also safeguard the economy from those who dump their goods here at our peril.

“We recognise that our borders are in a mess, and there are deeper concerns that our porous borders have ignited hustling trade actions for exploiters. This must be urgently addressed to ensure we harvest advantage of Trade,” he said.

Osakwe said profiling and review of all Nigeria’s trade agreements, which his office has commenced work on, would also put Nigeria on a sound footing to harvest benefits of trade and investments.

“Our panel recommends that Nigeria urgently establish a comprehensive inventory of all trade agreements, assess them, and exit the ones that impose a dead economic value to the nation’s economy. As a matter of urgency, also scale up those that are functional to meet 21st Century realities,” Osakwe said.

Yewande Sadiku, a moderator of the panel on trade, investments and competitiveness, said, “As part of short term suggestions, the government need to give status update on the Executive Orders signed by the President. This is to ensure and evaluate it’s impact as well as address concerns raised.”

She suggested further to the federal government to engage risk agencies that would assist investor’s have a better understanding of the local market, which would also attract more private capital investment into the country.

‎”According to the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), the Nigerian government expects 80% of Private capital to spur the needed growth in the economy, and there would be consistent evaluation of the polices to ensure it wealth creation. Also, the small scale businesses must be guided to understand in simple terms what the ERGP says, so that they can own the plans and contribute meaningfully to it,”

‎Heart Sunday, one of the panel discussants urged the Nigerian government to attract the right kind of private capital using the instrumentality of the Special Economic zones.

“The special economic zones could be the game-changer for attracting the right kind of investment into our country and also increase economic growth and development,” he said.