The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on Friday charted ways to engender a more inclusive and sustainable economic growth as Nigeria celebrated its 61st Independence anniversary.
Dr Chinyere Almona, Director-General, LCCI, made the recommendations in a report made available to newsmen to commemorate the anniversary.
Almona emphasised the need to chart a way forward to address the fundamental constraints to manufacturing competitiveness in the Nigerian economy.
She noted that infrastructure financing was a big issue that needed very deep reflection as Nigeria clocked 61.
The LCCI DG said that without a sound infrastructure base, it would be difficult to achieve the various socio-economic objectives of government at all levels.
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“Budgetary allocations have proved to be grossly inadequate for effective funding of infrastructure in Nigeria, neither can we continually depend on debt financing as the debt profile is already at an unsustainable threshold.
“It is thus imperative to seek innovative ways of effectively fund infrastructure in Nigeria.
“We need to develop new strategies to attract private sector capital to the infrastructure space.
“This should cover the broad spectrum of infrastructure provision – roads, railways, airports, waterways, electricity, and transition to renewable energy,” she said.
She said that the effective implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act was critical to reforming the oil and gas sector and positioning it to attract more quality Foreign Direct Investments.
The LCCI DG also stated that streamlining the foreign exchange management would reduce the cost of stabilising the exchange rate, boost its supply into the economy and prioritise the unification of the multiple exchange rates.
“All of these are essential to reduce the systemic distortions and disruptions resulting from the current model of foreign exchange management.
“It is important as well to deemphasise demand management and scale-up strategies to support the supply side of the forex make,” she said.
Almona also touched on the issue of revenue challenges at all levels of government.
“Acute revenue challenges are becoming an increasingly disturbing scenario at all levels of government.
“We need to urgently deal with the escalating cost of governance, fiscal leakages, and revenue optimisation issues,” she said.
