Tony Ejinkeonye is the president of Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In this interview with Harrison Edeh, he gave his views on Nigeria’s trade ecosystem and ease of doing business.
Nigeria has embarked on a series of economic reforms and trade reviews. What is your general assessment of all these and their impacts?
The steps taken by government are targeted at getting quick wins and taking the economy out of recession. Nevertheless, we must be cautious in our ambition because derivable impacts from these initiatives are not short-term based. Specifically, government undertook Trade Policy Review (TPR) this year at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It also introduced a number of executive orders and targeted reforms on thematic basis and launched the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan. These moves are necessary imperatives to rejig economic activities, enhance productivity and stimulate trade.
Let me state categorically that it is necessary for Nigeria to update Nigeria’s trade policy at the WTO to avoid injurious reciprocal actions by other member nations since some policy actions taken by the government in recent times, like forex policy, clearly contravene WTO provisions. Having finalised the TPR, there is a need to domesticate our trade strategy and create proper alignment to spur non-oil exports.
Recall that Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) was launched after the 2017 budget was submitted to national assembly. This implies the plan did not directly influence 2017 expenditure plan. Hence the strategic initiatives of the plan should form the basis for 2018 budget going forward. Since there is no special funding vehicle for the plan, federal government through its Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) must ensure that 2018 expenditure plan aligns fully with ERGP’s strategic programmes and activities to pave the way for effective implementation of the plan. To realise the objectives of the plan, government must create milestones and timelines together with monitoring and evaluation framework to track performance and impacts.
The government has taken bold steps in trade negotiations, with now a new office for trade negotiations. How will these impact trade and investment?
Nigeria is involved in negotiations with various multilateral agreements like the WTO Trade Facilitation, Africa Union Continental Free Trade Area (AU-CFTA), ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS), Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), and Common External Tariff (CET). To this end, the Office of the Trade Negotiations will create coherence and harmonisation among all concerned stakeholders and institution owners. With this alignment, we would review all scenarios in our economic integration activities and actions to have the best payoff in the overarching interest of economy. If we get our acts together, Nigeria should be the trade and investment hub of Africa. However, the first litmus test for the office is how Nigeria will fare in the AU-CFTA negotiations. Nigeria must be aggressive and negotiate to increase its both minerals and non-oil export to the Africa markets, which is a low hanging fruit. By Increasing our export to Africa, there will be complementary foreign investment inflow to the productive sectors of the economy.
What is your general assessment of government’s plans on ease of doing business?
The compliance rate to the ease of doing business initiatives would definitely move Nigeria up on the World Bank’s ease of doing business ranking this year. We have noticed a holistic approach in the implementation of the 60-Day National Action Plan. A number of bottlenecks concerning business registration and documentations, paying taxes, getting connected to the grid and accessing credits have been eliminated. Another critical reform implemented is the modification of our immigration procedures together with the simplification of visa on arrival. This transparency and sincerity of purpose will drive commercial activities. However, government should sustain the momentum and speed up actions to accelerate infrastructure improvement at the airports and as well facilitate a feedback mechanism for measuring compliance.
Any further comments?
Government should accelerate implementation of 2017 expenditure plan with focus on capital spending and social infrastructure while state governments should complement. Spending on capital projects and procurement of made-in-Nigeria commodities will have positive multiplier effects on production, employment and income.
