Economic Summit: Experts want government to focus on power

Abuja - Some experts on Wednesday identified power sector as
an area the Federal Government needed to urgently build to
achieve competitiveness.
The experts made the resolution at the design workshop on
"Creating and Sustaining Nigeria’s Competitive Advantage", a
sideline event at the 21st Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja.
The experts said Nigeria had strong potential for comparative
advantage which could be converted into competitiveness in
power and vocational skill.
Dr Fiyinfolu Oladiran, a facilitator of the workshop, told the
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the experts believed that
with right focus, policies and allocation of resources, the
country would achieve competitiveness.
"We (Nigeria) are going to compete with the best of countries
in these sectors identified and as a country that wants to
achieve inclusive growth; we need to focus on sectors that will
create employment.
"The group felt that manufacturing and agriculture sectors will
create employment and these sectors will help the country to
earn foreign exchange.
"If you look out at the economy now, only 14 per cent of our
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) comes from oil so already we
are working on diversification,’’ he said.
The facilitator, however, noted that diversifying of export had
been a major challenge of the economy, explaining that Nigeria
growth had been consumption.
"The economy has been internal and domestic; we have not
gotten to the area of diversifying our export yet and that effort
will help the country to achieve competitiveness,’’ he said.
According to him, experts have argued that in order to drive
the national competitiveness, massive reforms and investment
are needed in five key sectors.
He listed the sectors to include agro-allied industries; metal
and solid mineral; oil and gas value chain; construction, light
and manufacturing and service (ICT and entertainment).
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Earlier, Laoye Jaiyeola, Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian
Economic Summit Group, said the theme: "Tough Choices:
Achieving Competitiveness, Inclusive Growth and
Sustainability ’’ was apt.
He said that the choice of the theme was predicated on the
fact that in the recent 2014 rebasing, Nigeria emerged as
Africa’s foremost economic power.
"The rebasing with an estimated GDP of 536 billion dollars
(which has surpassed the economy of South Africa; accounts
for almost 50 per cent of the GDP of West Africa) our growth in
the last decade has remained non-inclusive.
According to him, some of symptoms include high
unemployment rate, high level of poverty and low
developmental indices ranking.
NES has become the largest and most prestigious annual
economic forum for policy makers and captains of industries
from the public and private sectors of the Nigerian economy.
It also provides opportunity for participants to interact and
share thoughts on key issues and challenges facing the
Nigerian economy, to evolve a common strategy and policy
framework for addressing them.
- NAN