Yemi Osinbajo, Vice President of Nigeria has revealed that the government is eyeing the implementation of structural, fiscal, and infrastructure reforms to accelerate the country’s economic recovery post-pandemic.
“Despite the marginal success achieved 2022 is enveloped with the uncertainty of threats of new variants and increased deglobalization strategies; bold coherent and sustainable economic reforms will be required to sustain growth,” Osinbajo said at the Deloitte’s 2022 economic dialogue on held last Thursday with the theme Sustainable Economic Growth and National Development Agenda.
Osinbajo who was represented by Emeka Offor, acting chief executive officer, Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) said Nigeria is quite prepared to participate in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), than other countries in the continent, adding that the president is also interested in seeing the effective and efficient participation of business.
“The key issue for Nigeria is diversification of its economic base, although we will not drop oil, other sectors like gas will be developed while however, activities in the non-oil sector will increase,” he said.
He added that AfCFTA will help Nigeria build on its competitiveness which will further drive its economic diversification drive, while reforms are implemented to create a level playing ground for businesses.
As part of the recovery process, Osinbajo said that increased adoption and utilization of technology will be necessary especially in the workspace, adding that technology and digitalization is fast becoming the core of activities in the global system.
Zainab Ahmed, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning said that revenue mobilization, debt financing, and infrastructure development will be the government’s focus as efforts are intensified to drive recovery.
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“The economy has displayed resilience post-COVID-19 especially as critical sectors continue to drive economic activities, and on the government’s part efforts are ongoing to fix our revenue challenge and plug all leakages,” she said.
She added that the provisions of the budget will further accelerate economic recovery and facilitate the completion of critical projects while the government creates the enabling environment for the private sector to increase their investment and contribute significantly to job creation, all of which will improve living conditions and drive economic activities.
Martyn Davies, managing director, Emerging Markets at Deloitte said that emerging markets and developing countries are expected to feel the impact of the pandemic for a longer time due to various factors including lower vaccination coverage, weak policy support among other issues.
“The global economy continues to experience shocks due to renewed infections and reinfections, states are reactive to the arising situation and there is a general feeling of uncertainty and inability of economies to fully recover to pre-COVID-19 levels on a consistent production basis,” he said.
He advised that for faster recovery, Africa needs to make itself more attractive for increased investment inflow especially with the use of structural and policy reforms.
Speaking about Nigeria’s recovery, he said although the economy contracted following the pandemic outbreak, it has bounced back to pre-pandemic growth levels and is expected to continue the movement in moderation.
“Nigeria’s GDP per capita also took a knock during 2020, however it is expected to show signs of relatively robust growth in the coming years,” he said.
Fatai Folarin, chief executive officer and West Africa regional leader, Deloitte in his remarks said that in 2022, countries including Nigeria will strive to achieve GDP growth and accelerate recovery, however achieving the growth will require a number of actions.
“We believe the country is set for growth and this will be achieved when some things are put in place like the medium-term expenditure framework which will improve businesses and drive growth, furthermore the 2021 capital budget rollover should be implemented,” he said.
