President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the task ahead in building a prosperous Nigeria requires partnership, innovative thinking, and most importantly, disciplined implementation of development policies by governments and the organized private sector.
Represented by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, during the opening session of the ongoing National Economic Summit 2022 in Abuja, the President stressed the need for increased productivity and value addition across different sectors of the economy so as to create more jobs for Nigerians, especially the youths, and increase national revenue for the nation’s sustainable development.
Speaking on the theme of the Summit ‘2023 & Beyond: Priorities for Shared Prosperity’ the President elaborately talked on key development framework documents that could catalyze the nation’s development and prosperity, including the National Development Plan 2021 – 2025, and the impact of the Economic Sustainability Plan, among others.
Buhari also highlighted key issues such as youth development, improving macroeconomic conditions, the impact of climate change, the need for a just transition to net-zero emissions, debt-for-climate swap deal for African countries, and the launch of the African Carbon Market Initiative at the ongoing COP-27 in Egypt as crucial initiatives that can help in positioning Nigeria among the fast-growing countries globally.
He explained: “The need for more intentional and focused investment on our youths, especially in globally marketable skills, access to credit, protection of intellectual property rights of innovators, and inventors and access to global markets. I trust that some of these issues will be given deeper attention in your discussions at this summit.
“The task ahead requires partnership, innovative thinking; but, most importantly, disciplined implementation”, Buhari added.
On the country’s improving macroeconomic indices, the President pointed out that on the positive side, the economy continued to grow with GDP growth at 3.54% in the 2nd quarter of this year even as non-oil revenues have similarly continued to improve due in part to strategic revenue initiatives, including the annual Finance Act.”
Despite the modest achievements, the President admitted that revenue challenges had heightened the notion that Nigeria had a debt problem, saying that this is really not the case, given that the nation’s debt/GDP ratio is just 23%.
Noting that although the country’s current debt service to revenue ratio is high, Buhari maintained that “unlike in the past, when we were not keeping a close eye on debt matters, the creation of the Debt Management Office means that we are better able to adopt strategies to manage our debt, including using more concessional loans, spreading out our debt maturities and re-financing short-term debt with longer-term debt instruments.
“We have already seen real improvements in our non-oil revenues, but our focus must now be on productivity or encouraging value addition. Productivity and value addition means creation of traceable value; it means jobs, opportunities, and more tax revenues.”
“To increase productivity, we must free up our environment for business, make local and international trade easier by fixing the ports, effecting the National Single Window, revamping our Customs processes and Tariff codes to reduce delays and arbitrariness, removing needless restrictions on imports to enable value added processes”, the President added.
