Trust Africa News, By Ayomide Otitoju
As you know, trade plays a significant role in the economic growth of a nation intent on building wealth and improving its foreign reserves position. Trade is central to ending poverty, raising peoples’ standards of living, accelerating economic growth and improving productivity. It is a key driver of GDP growth, and of course employment creation.
The relevance of Lagos hosting the trade fair ts rather obvious; aside being Nigeria’s financial hub, it is also home to the major Exchanges; the Nigeria Exchange Pic (NGX Pic), Financial Markets Dealers Quotations (FMDQ), National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) and the Lagos Commodities and Futures Exchange (LCFE). Lagos also accounts for over 80% of the country’s foreign trade flows and generates over 50% of Nigeria’s port revenues.
The Lagos International Trade Fair is a great platform to amplify our trade discussions and ensure our business community is well positioned for the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). AfCFTA will, among other things, enable us create employment for our large and growing population, diversify the economy from a relatively narrow base, build industrial capacity and trade competitiveness as well as improve the management of our foreign exchange reserves to alleviate the economy’s vulnerability to changes In crude oil prices, All of these will of course only happen if we carefully and strategically manage the opportunities it presents to us.
In achieving our mandate of wealth and value creation, it is imperative that as a country, we improve ease of doing business, increase economic activities and ensure the economy is diversified whilst still creating jobs for our citizens. One of the major policy thrusts we are deploying to drive the facilitation of trade and market access is the imminent revision of Nigeria’s trade policy. Its revision will capture our current economic realities and our aspirations of further facilitating trade and access to market both locally and regionally, especially in the advent in the implementation of AfCFTA. A fully revised trade policy will incorporate significant strategies to mitigate against the concerns of traders such as infrastructure bottlenecks and low domestic demands for made in Nigeria goods. It will also strengthen domestic value trade especially in the agric sector. As a ministry, we recognize the role that government needs to play to maintain confidence and improved trade across borders and wider international trade and investment.
The year 2020 was challenging for all economies but Nigeria is coming back strong. In the first half of this year, investment announcement was $10.1 billion. And increase of 100 per cent of the year 2020. Investors from Europe, China, Morocco and the United Kingdom are making strong commitments and this administration is working tirelessly to ensure these commitments turn into projects that positively affect our nation. To push our trade activities and prospects, we must support locally manufactured goods. It is in this regard our government signed Executive Order 003 in 2017 and several campaigns have been launched to create necessary awareness and momentum. Once again, I want to use this medium to call for collaboration between Federal Government agencies and State governments towards this end. The cooperation of all of us as patriotic Nigeria as well as that of our friends around the world will be required to achieve our targets including I want to extend my appreciation to the members of LCCI for their consistent coordination of such an event annually.
Being a text of speech delivered by Otunba Niyi Adebayo, Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment at the Lagos International Trade Fair, Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos.
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