Buhari tasked on export promotion, foreign investment

Some Abuja residents have urged President Muhammadu Buhari to pursue a foreign policy that will ensure that Nigeria’s foreign mission do more to promote Nigeria’s export potential.

They told the News Agency of Nigeria on Monday that the foreign policy should also encourage direct foreign investment.

According to them, the foreign policy thrust should also focus on achieving debt rescheduling with a view to building a stronger national economy.

Alfred Nkemmefuna, a civil servant, said the present administration should embark on a foreign policy that would not only increase resources in Nigeria but that would reduce poverty nationwide.

He said the Federal Government should come up with a policy that would promote export and attract investment from abroad.

Olufemi Babatunde said the Federal Government should partner friendly countries to ensure that hard drugs and other goods inimical to the nation’s and image wellbeing did not find their way into Nigeria.

Dimas Isuwa, a civil ser- vant, said the new admin- istration should continue to make Africa the centre of Nigeria’s foreign policy, saying “charity begins at home.

Any Nigerian foreign policy that does take this into consideration will fall short of expectations of Nigerians.” He called on the National Nigerian insurance industry total assets hit N711.4bn

The nation’s insur- ance industry’s total assets have hit a whopping N711.4 billion from about N347.1 billion in 2007, indicating an increase of 104 percent.

This follows the transformational initia- tive in the industry that has not only encouraged market development, but has also increased consumer confi- dence and market deepen- ing in the sector.

The industry perfor- mance, which also saw the gross premium income growing from N100 billion in 2007 to N302 billion at the end of 2014, an increase of over 200 percent, stakehold- ers say is attributable to the pragmatic and dynamism brought into insurance regulation by Fola Daniel, outgoing Commissioner for Insurance.

Daniel assumed the leadership of the National Insur- ance Commission (NAI- COM) in 2007, and would be finishing his eight years tenure in July 2015, with a lot of industry successes such as implementation of compulsory insurances; fight against fake insurance; ‘No premium No Cover’ policy; implementation of IFRS; market development products, including micro insurance and Takaful under the Market Development and Restructuring Initia- tive (MDRI), among other reforms.

Nicholas Opara, director, supervision, NAICOM, who disclosed the figures in Ilo- rin, the Kwara State capital, said the industry total liabil- ity to date was N422.7 billion and shareholders fund stood at N352.5 billion, whereas net profit of the industry was N28.430 billion.

At the end of first quarter 2015 unaudited accounts, the industry total assets grew to N709.3 billion, Opara said, linking the improved statistics to the digitalisation and trans- formation in the industry.

The issue of financial reporting was a challenge facing the insurance indus- try, where it was difficult for companies to make early rendition, with a lot of finan- cial re-engineering, Opara noted.

“Today, financial re-en- gineering in the insurance industry is over for good, and we can see up to 40 compa- nies having submitted their annual accounts before end of June. We have 26 accounts al- ready approved, 13 accounts being reviewed and one being looked at now,” he said.

This is a tremendous shift from the past, and our com- panies financial presenta- tions can be comparable with their counterparts in Europe, America and other advanced markets because it is in line with international reporting standards, he said.

The increased confidence in our market following good regulation, market develop- ment as well as compliance with IFRS has attracted the attention of foreign investors, including the likes of AXA, Old Mutual, among others, into the Nigerian market, Opara said further.

The insurance industry has a lot of potentials to become number one in Africa, Fola Daniel said in his earlier remark, stating the its present position in Africa as number two is a good improvement from its position of five in 2007, but we do not have any reason to be in number two but number one.

“Nigeria can eclipse South Africa in the next five years, and I see that happen- ing,” he said, and assured that the present government was interested in driving the insurance business, having realised that without strong insurance industry the economy would con- tinue to crawl.

Assembly to, through rele- vant legislative instruments, ensure that Buhari allowed his foreign affairs minister to be truly in charge of foreign relations.

Another respondent who pleaded anonymity urged Buhari to appoint a competent, brilliant and visionary person to run the ministry of foreign affairs, as Nigeria should take a cue from many countries where career diplomats were in charge of the ministries of foreign affairs.