The Lagos Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI) has advocated more policy reforms from the government to improve the business environment, boost investor confidence, stimulate economic growth, create more employment and alleviate poverty.
The president of LCCI, Asiwaju Michael Olawale-Cole stated this at the Chamber press briefing on the state of the economy for the second quarter of 2023.
Olawale-Cole said, GDP grew by 2.31per cent (year-on-year) in real terms in the first quarter of 2023, compared to 3.52 per cent recorded in the previous quarter and 3.11 per cent in the corresponding period in 2022, saying, “the quarterly growth indicates that the economy remained weak and fragile. However, it showed 10th consecutive growth despite contractionary monetary policies.”
On the way forward for the economy, he recommended that the federal government needs to focus on addressing security challenges that have plagued the business community and negatively affected investment inflows, saying, “our hope is that this new political era will witness a marked improvement in terms of the state and fate of national security in nigeria.”
He pointed out that “the federal government needs to sustain its targeted interventions in critical sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and export infrastructure.”
LCCI president urged the government to keep track of plans to tackle the menace of oil theft to boost oil exports and earn more foreign exchange.
“We also commend the government for the effort made to date to combat the cartels involved in oil theft. If these efforts had started earlier, the nation would have made huge economic gains. The chamber therefore appeals to the government to intensify the efforts.
“We commend the government on the two policy reforms: subsidy removal and exchange rate harmonisation. We expect the policies to be sustained and impact positively on investment, fiscal and external sectors,” he said.
He added that, while the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) embarks on monetary tightening to tame inflation, it should ensure that targeted concessionary credit to the private sector is sustained for MSMEs.
On the National debt, he said: “the government should explore other avenues to manage debt, including opening equity opportunities and offloading/selling off some of its real estate holdings.
“The government should also intensify its effort to deal with insecurity, oil theft, and vandalism, as well as block all revenue leakages in government institutions.
“These actions will increase revenue and lessen the propensity to borrow. If the government had done this earlier, our debt stock would have been very limited.”
Speaking on palliatives for Nigerians, LCCI recommended that a system of implementation that assures Nigerians of integrity and transparency should be instituted.
According to him, “the responsibility for effective implementation should be vested on respectable and credible individuals. In addition, the government needs to urgently consider other measures to solve the socio-economic and economic problems, which will sustainably ameliorate the effect.”
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