Minister of Budget and National Planning Minister, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, has told foreign businesses interested in investing in Africa to take a look at the very attractive opportunities available in Nigeria as the country’s economic outlook for 2018, and in the near future is very positive.
Senator Udoma spoke on Wednesday night at a dinner hosted by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for investors at the World Economic Forum (WEF) which ends in Davos, in Switzerland, on Friday.
He told the gathering, which also included Nigerians in the Diaspora, that the government is determined to revamp the economy by improving the enabling environment for all investors, both domestic and international. He informed them that the aim of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP), which was launched by President Muhammadu Buhari last year, is to restore growth by diversifying the economy, stabilising the macroeconomic environment, investing in infrastructure and improving the country’s business environment, amongst others.
The minister emphasised that the main principles behind the ERGP are to tackle the constraints to growth, leverage the power of the private sector, allow markets to function, whilst upholding the country’s core values and promoting national cohesion and social inclusion.
He was happy to report that since the ERGP was launched and implementation commenced, the economy has started showing signs of improvement.
Indeed, he pointed out that, already, one of its objectives has been achieved as the economy emerged from recession in the second quarter of 2017, with GDP showing a marginal growth of 0.72%.
By the third quarter of 2017, the growth level doubled to 1.40% with strong showing in Agriculture which grew by 3.06% and Industry by 8.83%.
Other positive indicators, he emphasised are the growth in the level of Capital Importation which increased to $4.145 million in Q3 of 2017; Foreign Reserves which grew to N39.43 billion in January 2017 and Inflation which declined to 15.37% by December 2017.
He also indicated that there has been a narrowing of the gap between the CBN rate for foreign exchange and the parallel market rate. All these he listed as evidence that confidence in the Nigerian economy is coming back.
