Economy: Buhari urged to enforce local content policy

A researcher with Nigeria Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER), Damilola Arawomo has called for the need by the present administration to enforce local content policy so as to cushion the effects of the dwindling economy in the country.

Arawomo,a Phd holder of the  department of Surveillance and Forecasting in NISER said this will also facilitate knowledge transfer from multinational to Nigerians and increase the intensity of export of products which Nigeria have Intra-Industry Trade (IIT).In his address at the June monthly lecture of the institute titled “Drivers of Intra-Industry Trade between Nigeria and The European Union” he said the fall of oil price at the world market would not have been have much effect in the Nigerian economy if the country has been able to diversify its economy.

He noted that all efforts must also be put towards diversifying the economy saying  “we are all aware that we can get about 1000 products from crude product, if we refine these products and sell them, the prize of all these products will not drop at the same time and we will not have the problem we have now.””We should identify some products we have capacity that we can refine and sell to developed countries and not them turning us to a dumping ground.

The paper presenter who declared that all products in which Nigeria have Intra-Industry Trade (IIT) with the EU are vertically differentiated and emerged in early 2000 said it is still low compared to what rate it suppose to be.

According to him, “As at 2012, only 38 percent if all products in which Nigeria has with the EU were exported from Nigeria, therefore, efforts should be made to increase the intensity of export of such products.

“There are a lot of multinationals in the country, but there are benefits to get from but beyond that immediate needs, we should look inward, that we need to learn from them so that we can have capacity to transfer the knowledge.

“So, the government needs to make such policy to enable us to learn on how to make some of these things.

“We need to make it as part of our policy to encourage them to embark of more research for development, by the time they are developing, our people will understand more and we will be able to move ahead.

Arawomo also urged government at all levels to fix the deficits in the social amenities in the country.