The Nigerian Economic Summit Group(NESG) says there opportunities to usher Nigeria into an era of shared and sustainable prosperity inspite of the current economic turbulence of the country.
Mr. Asue Ighodalo Chairman, Board of Directors of NESG,stated this on Wednesday in Abuja at a media briefing in preparation for the 28th Nigerian Economic Summit(NES#28) slated for November 14-15, in Abuja
He said given the right political leadership, Nigeria can become a leading industrialising and reforming nation in Africa that focuses on building its state capacity and capabilities.
He added that: “Our country can break free from decades-long political, policy, legislative and regulatory binding constraints.We can create an enabling investment climate and business environment, underpinned by a motivated, capacitated, well-resourced, world-class civil service that drives open, transparent, high-performance governance at all levels.
“We can move Nigeria decisively towards structural and institutional reforms required to unlock local content development, sub-national economic diversification, competitiveness, and growth in the medium term. We can make moderate and incremental progress in poverty reduction and job creation, and we can make Nigeria the dominant shareholder of FDI inflows into the African continent.
He revealed that this year’s Summit is organised against the backdrop of these challenges, opportunities and critical themes.
Ighodalo said: “Nigeria’s age-long challenges are not unconnected with macroeconomic instability experienced in the country over time. The unstable macroeconomic space is reflected in high inflation, exchange rate volatility, constricted fiscal space, weak external reserves, and balance of payments problems. This, in addition to social and political instability, has proved the extent of Nigeria’s vulnerability to shocks.
“In 2021, Nigeria was ranked among the bottom half of African countries classified as less resilient to shocks by the African Development Bank (AfDB).Unfortunately, the country’s vulnerability burden is borne by the people at the bottom of the income pyramid, which could aggravate insecurity.
“2023 presents another opportunity to demonstrate a strong political will to tackle Nigeria’s socio-economic challenges. Hence, the NESG seeks to unveil the most critical challenges for urgent attention: these are unemployment surge, huge infrastructural deficit, fiscal weakness, human capital and skills gap, flawed security architecture, and corruption.”
Speaking,Prince Clem Agba, Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, said the annual Nigerian Economic Summit over the past 27 years, has become a model for public-private partnership as it provides a credible and widely recognised platform for top policymakers and corporate leaders to interact and exchange ideas on contemporary socio-economic challenges with a view to proffering solutions for policy action.
He said that the previous summits had helped to shape many of the reform policies that have underpinned Nigeria’s development aspiration and economic growth strategy.
Commenting on the theme of the 28th NES, “2023 and Beyond: Priorities for Shared Prosperity,” the minister said the theme was carefully chosen to discuss priorities for post 2023 with emphasis on the policies and strategies encapsulated in the National Development Plan(NDP).
He stated that NDP is designed to drastically bring down poverty rate to 0.6 per cent and unemployment rate to 6.3 per cent, while transiting the economy to the highest per capita GDP in the group of upper -middle income economics.