Dike Onwuamaeze
The Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has tasked the incoming president to take urgent steps to address the challenges militating against the industrial development of Nigeria and boost investors’ confidence by ensuring that regulatory risks and shocks are reduced to the barest minimum.
These views were expressed in a public statement that was released yesterday by the Chief Executive Officer of CPPE, Dr. Muda Yusuf, which was titled “Economic Agenda for Incoming Administration” in which the incoming administration was advised to ensure liquidity in the foreign exchange market and make rapid investments that would support backward integration in core industries like iron and steel, petrochemicals, aluminum smelter, pulp and paper and refineries.
Yusuf said: “Ensure liquidity in the foreign exchange market to guarantee access to foreign exchange for the procurement of raw materials and machineries for industry,” adding that “scaling up investment in infrastructure through the injection of more funds and the attraction of private capital into the infrastructure space would reduce production cost and boost productivity in manufacturing.”
He also called for the “creation of more industrial parks across the country and improvement in the facilities of existing ones,” while emphasizing the need “to strengthen current development finance to support the real sector with appropriate financing” that could offer “single digit facility with a minimum of five years tenure.”
He further tasked the incoming administration to put in place a tariff regime that adequately protects local industries.
“Import duty on intermediate products and critical industrial inputs should be reviewed to reduce production costs.
“Tariff review processes should be more inclusive and transparent. The administration should prioritize trade facilitation and removal all non-tariff barriers to trade,” adding that “the practice of intercepting cargoes that have been duly cleared at any of our ports should be discontinued. The practice has been proven to be extortionist.
