By Peter Egwuatu

As the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, NESG has concluded arrangements to host this year’s summit, it is expected that both Government officials and array of private sector chieftains across the sectors of the economy would grace the occasion to discuss issues affecting the economy and provide panacea to addressing the economic challenges facing the country.

kaduna market

This year’s 22nd Summit which would hold in Abuja from October 10th -12th, with the theme “Made in Nigeria” is apt as the country is faced with economic recession.  This Summit is expected to focus on issues such as Manufacturing, Agriculture, Agro processing, Infrastructure, Creative Industry, Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs among others.

Participants’ discussion should be centred on diversifying the economy away from oil to agriculture and industrialisation and that would mean encouraging local production for increased consumption and export to generate more foreign exchange earnings for the country.

Most economies that depend on commodities for their national income (especially crude oil) are going through major decline in their external earnings.  But Nigeria has some peculiarities given that it is not only import dependent, it is a huge consumption economy. This  has  led  to negative  economic  growth,  dwindling  foreign reserves,  stress  on  balance  of  payment  and mounting pressure on local currency exchange rate relative to major currencies.

The  resulting  social  challenges  include increasing  unemployment,  reducing  income, pervasive  poverty  and  a  decline  in  funding public and social goods. The question is: how is Nigeria going to fundamentally address these challenges?

Whereas  the  2014  GDP  rebasing exercise of the Nigerian economy indicated that Nigeria’s  economy  was  more  diversified  than previously thought as is  evident in a reduction in  the  share  of  oil  and  gas  in  its  GDP composition (now 11 per cent), with the non-oil sector components taking lead, it is important to note that oil and gas still plays a significant role in the  economy  as  it  accounts  for  94 per cent  of  export revenues and 70 per cent of government revenue.

An  exacerbation of  these  conditions  have  also seen  capital  inflows  crash  by  more  than  53 per cent  addition  to  significant  capital  flight,  by implication  staving  off  alternative  sources  of foreign  exchange  needed  to  keep  businesses, especially the real sector running in Nigeria.  We  must  encourage  more  production  and consumption  of  Made  in  Nigeria  goods  and services  while  maintaining  a  trade  balance between  imports  and  exports  and  recognizing the  realities  of  globalization.

This  will reinvigorate  moribund  industries  and  services that have shown potentials in the past and curtail the  growing  demand  for  foreign  exchange  for consumption  rather  than  capital  products  and equipment. If we can achieve this, we will also conserve and potentially even add to our foreign reserves and reduce the pressure on the Naira relative to other currencies.

It will be recalled that past Nigerian Economic Summits made recommendations on  self-sufficiency  in  local production and an export-driven economy. With our current economic realities, this is the perfect opportunity  to  articulate  a  national  discussion on  “Made  in  Nigeria”  to  promote  the  goods and services that are already up to standards for consumption,  encourage  exports  and  increase opportunities for SMEs.

The 22ND NESG should provide a platform to sharpen the focus of the conversation.  The key thrust, according to the organisers of the Summit would be to facilitate stakeholders’ discussions/agreements on the practical issues, opportunities, policies and regulations needed for “Made in Nigeria” to become an economic growth and development agenda.

It will also seek to work out the strategies to achieve self-sufficiency  and  value-addition  capacities  for several  products  and  services  in  the  shortest possible  time.

The  sub-themes  of  the  Summit shall  deliberate  on  the  macroeconomic environment;  ease  of  doing  business; stakeholders’ behaviours and attitudes; access to finance;  infrastructure;  quality  and  standards; technology  and  innovation;  as  well  as  job creation, skills and youth employment.  Key outcomes will include a practical roadmap that will contextualize “Made in Nigeria” as an economic growth and development strategy for our short, medium and long term development.