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The Made in Nigeria Festival 2016 began on a worthy note at the Eko Atlantic City. With strategic public and private stakeholders in attendance to showcase unique solutions to some of Nigeria’s problems especially in the areas of infrastructure, technology and power.
Jumoke Oduwole the special assistant to the Vice President on Trade and Industry said that the MaIN Festival is topical because of the current situation of the country. The MaIN Festival is staged to create a platform for the maximum expression of the true Nigerian spirit and the creative ingenuity of development of Nigeria.
The objective of MaIN Festival is to showcase a international festival of ideas, innovation and power generation to facilitate trade and commerce in five sectors; power and infrastructure, agricultural business, technology, manufacturing and sports and entertainment.
In her address, she said that the challenges affecting our economy are numerous because a lot of large corporations are downsizing, SME’s are folding up, investors are getting cold feet and electricity is an issue yet to be solved. These is our roaming reality she mentioned. She further said we need to the drive to create an enabling business environment in Nigeria, we need to engage and collaborate the private community which would increase enablement for business in Nigeria and stimulate feedback from the stakeholders. She added that the priority areas for the Federal Government is transparency and digitalization, business registration, trade across borders and land registration reforms.
To conclude her speech, she mentioned that the Federal Government is repositioning the economy for sustainable development that is committed in enabling private sector growth.
The First panel discussed Doing Business In Nigeria with panelists such as Sola Adekoya CEO of Konga.com, Joseph Tegbe of KPMG , Bode Agoro PS,Lands Registry, Lagos , Olabintan Famutimi , the President , Nigeria-America Chamber of Commerce, Col Charles Indigie, Coordintor SouthWest, Nigerian Customs, Ahmed Bashir, UK Consulate and the session was moderated by Iyadunni Gbadebo, MD,BVG Limited. The Chair of the panel was Senator Remi Tinubu, Chairman House Committee on Environment.
The panel discussed thoroughly on the ease and challenges of doing business in Nigeria with issues raised were Land availability for SME’s, ease of business registration, customs tariffs , accessibility of loans and innovation.
