Lagos, GIZ collaborate to improve investment climate for businesses

The Lagos State Government has collaborated with the Pro-Poor Growth and Promotion of Employment in Nigeria (SEDIN) programme of the German Development Agency (GIZ) to improve the investment climate for businesses in the state.

Solape Hammod, special adviser to the Governor of Lagos State on SDGs and Investment during her opening remarks at a Validation Workshop of the Report on Barometer of Investment Climate In Lagos said that the investment barometer is the state’s homegrown measure of ease of doing business.

“We can’t have businesses in Lagos without hearing from them and not having a tangible way of measuring how they feel, what is important to them, what we are doing right, and what we need to be doing and amplify,” she said.

“Lagos has always been at the front and centre of ease of doing business in Nigeria. The state made a significant contribution to the country’s improvement by 45 places in the ease of doing business,” she further said.

She stated that the state has always been involved in the national ease of doing business and had initiated quite a few things. However, she said despite the state’s involvement and its role, the national ease of doing business still does not capture some of the things peculiar to businesses in Lagos such as the Apapa congestion.

“We have always been involved in the subnational ease of doing and initiated quite a few things that are not included. For us that is not enough because it doesn’t capture some things that are peculiar to businesses in Lagos like the Apapa congestion and some other cogent issues faced by small businesses in the state,” she said.

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“So, we taught to put together something more comprehensive and speak to the issues in Lagos that we know. For us, the barometer is another way we are trying to hear from businesses that operate in Lagos and it will be a yearly thing,” she added.

She noted that the state wants to work together with businesses to address the issues while improving on areas the state is doing well.

Speaking also during the workshop, Vincent Nwani, a consultant who worked on the Lagos Barometer of Investment Climate report while presenting key findings said that 500 businesses in the state were engaged in the survey.

According to him, the top 10 best performing indicators are airport standard, ICT standard, quality of healthcare system, leisure and culture, university system, measures to tackle investment obstacles, science, and technology, high-end talents, and registration.

He said that the least 10 performing indicators for the state are; cost of living, transport, raw material, office rental, accommodation, industrial land, getting electricity, paying taxes, getting building permits, and water services.

“There are 10 areas that businesses want the state government to improve, they are; road infrastructure, tax policy, high cost of office rental and accommodation, and poor power supply among others,” Nwani said.

Markus Wauschkuhn, head of programme, GIZ-SEDIN said that programme is committed to improving the employment situation of Nigeria through the support of SMEs.

We are specifically working with our partners to address bottlenecks that are hindering businesses from scaling and creating more jobs.