Admin l Wednesday, August 23, 2017
LAGOS, Nigeria – President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Mr Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede and Senior Economic Adviser for Open Society Foundation, Dr Oby Ezekwesili have proposed that Nigeria needs to run an open economy if it wants to thrive.
They made the assertion as panelists at the Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), with the theme, ‘The Great Debate ‘We Need Help to Grow’ .
“The idea that a country’s economy can be closed is not anything founded on facts but we however have to determine the degree of openness of the economy. It is not possible to completely close an economy to the degree it cannot interact with other countries in the world.
“You cannot discuss openness with an ideology, it is better to use an evidence based approach. When the Economic Growth and Recovery Plan was announced by this administration, I was of the opinion that you cannot create an economic reform plan that will not totally overhaul the system and the sectors we have in place,” she said.
In his view, Aig-Imoukhuede said that a close economy will not thrive in a country like Nigeria noting that internal growth was essential in the success of an open economy.
“In order to grow an economy, you need to find growth, you cannot do solely through internal growth, no country in the world has been able to do it successfully.
“I am in support of an open approach to the economy, however, we need to note that the fact that we should pursue a totally open economy is worrying. There is a worrying trend in the world where close economy can be associated with nationalism.
“Looking at sectors of the economy which are open up to both foreign and African investors, the lead is always taken by Africans, look at industries like construction, cement and manufacturing.
“If Africans spent making our business environment as attractive for local investors as is done for foreign investors, we will see a lot of changes. Looking at the quality of governance in African countries, Nigeria being the flag bearer, we have seen an ever worsening of government policies.
“If you think that foreign entrepreneurship will totally transform this country, we will wait a long time,” the NSE president said.
Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam El-Rufai said there is the need to support home-grown businesses in order for the Nigerian economy to experience a surge in growth.
The governor who spoke through Solicitor-General of the state, Mr Chris Umar said there is the need to support technology, businesses and infrastructure.
“We need finance and help to support these ventures especially Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). When the administration came on board, we discovered that there were a lot of insecurity and we noticed a link between insecurity and unemployment.
“If we totally open up our borders the growth of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) will be affected and there’ll be a surge in insecurity. We however need to strengthen our institutions and we need to do so much to strengthen the judiciary,” Umar said.
