Southwest Nigeria must develop mechanisms that will connect investors to the sustainable investment opportunities within the region to facilitate the exchange of national value chains, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos, and his Ondo State counterpart, Rotimi Akeredolu, have said.
The governors spoke, Wednesday, at the first Southwest Nigeria investment promotion agencies conference hosted in Lagos, with theme “Southwest Nigeria: An economic bloc for investment” with participants drawn from the six states within the region- Ekiti, Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ondo.
According to Sanwo-Olu, who was represented by his commissioner for economic planning and budget, Samuel Egube, improving the region’s trade competitiveness, encouraging the diversification of exports beyond natural resources, and promoting broader and more-inclusive growth should be a major agenda for the region.
He believed that to further strengthen the regional alliance and effectively connect businesses to achieve effective sustainable development, the Southwest must develop a ‘trade and investment hub’ to boost commerce, urbanisation and infrastructure.
“This structure will directly encourage effective regional cooperation and integration among member states by supporting efforts towards deepening regional markets, enhancing trans-boundary cooperation, boosting intra-state trade, accelerating industrialisation, fostering market institutions and tackling the challenges of structural transformation.
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Significantly, our policies and decisions must be influenced and shaped by the economic strength and potential of each of the participating states towards building resilience and an enduring bloc that can drive commercial expansion,”Sanwo-Olu said.
Speaking further, the governor emphasise the need for the region to increase investment capital and technology flow, adding that liberalisation ofinvestment must be comprehensive and of benefit to all sectors. “Without improving the overall business environment and encouraging private sector participation, the region will not reap the benefits of investment integration,” he noted.
Akeredolu, represented by Boye Oyewunmi, CEO, Ondo State Investment Agency, stressed the need for the region to pay attention to the quality education and improvement of security to boost investment.
In her address at the event, Solape Hammond, the special adviser to Governor Sanw-Olu on sustainable development goals and investment, said in putting the conference together, the focus was on integration, collaboration, strategic policy formulation, trade obstacles and challenges, shared opportunities and short and long term comparative advantages of the Southwest.
“We live in a world of globalisation and the pace of technological change is staggering. The extent and speed at which innovations grow across borders through exchange of goods, capital and ideas is unprecedented. It carries with it prospects of improvement of lives across continents. Therefore, the task for all governments and institutions is to maximise these opportunities to improve the lives of its citizens,” she said.
Speaking further, she said: “maintaining macroeconomic stability is clearly an important part of the growth and investment equation. Investors must also be confident of foolproof security to inflationary surges and sudden reversal of policies. This cannot be determined by the region alone. But, as a bloc, with good investment standing, we can surely influence most policies to our advantage.”
Emeka Offor, the acting executive secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC), while also emphasising the need for states and regions to collaborate and leverage their comparative economic advantages to improve their internally generated revenues, promised the support of the Federal Government through the council.
