Nigeria needs serious reforms to trigger multi-trillion dollar economy – NESG

For Africa’s most populous country to trigger a multi-trillion dollar economic growth, it will require serious reforms and consistent actions and deliberate institutional reforms among others to trigger a multi-trillion dollar economy in 10 years.

Niyi Yusuf, chairman of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) made the call in Abuja on Monday, during his opening remarks at the 29th Nigerian Economic Summit Group.

“Achieving a multi-trillion dollar economy will require a paradigm shift, big, bold actions, tough choices and significant sacrifices by all of us,” he said.

Furthermore, he said; “A multi-trillion dollar economy is viable within a decade of serious reform, consistent economic action and deliberate institutional reforms.”

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He explained that the country stands at a critical precipice, and the people’s challenges demand immediate, concerted efforts. He reiterated the need for the parties involved to act immediately with a shared sense of urgency.

In his speech, he assured the government that the NESG stands ready to support the model the tough choices required and the associated palliative measures to ameliorate the short-term impact on the populace.

Yusuf disclosed that a multi-trillion dollar economic growth trajectory will urgently need certain actions such as a macroeconomic stabilisation programme supported by an aggressively scaled national security effort to halt all forms of syndicated and organised crime around crude oil and solid minerals.

Besides, he emphasised a made-in-Nigeria agenda, to make-in-Nigeria, two strategic drivers require urgent investment: a national emergency energisation programme to enable access to stable, predictable, and affordable electricity supply, and a national infrastructure corridor development programme – an efficient and integrated transport and logistics network that links value chains to sea, air and land ports, among others.

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He explained that this year’s summit has been calibrated as a burning platform to answer the question of the essential pillars of economic transformation that would get us to the future envisaged by the government.

“The need for urgent strategic shifts that impact the ease and cost of doing business within a relatively short period is a matter of existential threat to the survival of enterprises and entrepreneurs.

The low access to and increasing cost of foreign exchange, high cost of inventory, imported inputs, and operations, coupled with the diversity of taxes, continue to erode business balance sheets, with resultant contraction in production and employment.

Large firms are battling low-capacity utilisation, while medium, small and micro-enterprises grapple with multidimensional complexities. These poor economic outcomes have created worsening social conditions that cannot be taken for granted,” he noted.

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In 1993, a group of passionate and concerned private sector leaders representing key economic sectors conceived the Nigerian Economic Summit (NES) and sustained it as a platform for bringing together private sector leaders and senior public sector officials to discuss and dialogue on the future of the Nigerian economy.

The 29th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES #29), with the theme “Pathways to Sustainable Economic Transformation and Inclusion,” convenes national and global leaders in government, business, politics, development, civil society, and academia through a hybrid Summit platform of in-person and virtual dialogues.