Dike Onwuamaeze
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Commends Tinubu’s commitment to bringing factories alive, stating that Nigeria cannot achieve mass employment and broad-based prosperity without strong manufacturing and industrial base.
The chamber gave this commendation in its reaction to Tinubu’s nationwide broadcast that marked Nigeria’s 66th independence anniversary celebration, in which Tinubu said Nigeria has moved beyond the phase of economic stabilisation and must now enter an era of shared and widespread prosperity.
In a press statement that called for “Faster Delivery of a Competitive Business Environment that Supports Enterprise Prosperity,” the President of LCCI, Mr. Leye Kupoluyi, said that “we strongly welcome the President’s commitment to bringing factories back to life, using Nigeria’s gas resources to power industries, improving access to infrastructure and finance, and promoting Nigerian-made products. Nigeria cannot sustainably achieve mass employment and broad-based prosperity without a strong manufacturing and industrial base.
“We, therefore, urge the federal government to move rapidly after the announcement into reducing industrial energy costs; improving electricity reliability for productive enterprises; accelerating gas-to-industry projects; expanding affordable long-term financing for manufacturers; addressing the infrastructure deficit in industrial clusters; improving access to working capital for SMEs; reducing regulatory and administrative costs; strengthening local supply chains; promoting exports of manufactured and processed Nigerian products; and preventing policy measures that unintentionally increase production costs.”
Kupoluyi said, “A competitive manufacturing sector will simultaneously address several of Nigeria’s challenges: employment, productivity, import dependence, export diversification, technology transfer and government revenue.”
He said that the transition from reform to prosperity must now be measured not only by macroeconomic indicators, but by the extent to which Nigerian businesses can invest, produce, employ, compete, and expand—and by whether Nigerian households actually experience improvements in their purchasing power and living standards.
Kupoluyi said that the business community is “looking for the next phase of the economic programme to be defined by a relentless focus on reducing the cost of doing business, expanding productive capacity, and creating an environment in which investment decisions can be made with greater confidence.”
He said that lowering the high cost of doing business is perhaps the most important economic challenge before Nigerian businesses today.
He said: “For manufacturers, farmers, logistics operators, retailers, and millions of SMEs, the cost structure remains elevated by energy costs, transportation, multiple taxation, infrastructure gaps, financing costs, regulatory charges, insecurity, and logistics inefficiencies. Consequently, the LCCI believes that the next phase of government policy should place enterprise competitiveness at the centre of economic management.”
The president of LCCI stated that businesses need to see a sustained moderation in the prices of food, transport, energy, and essential goods.
According to him the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth records must generate productive employment and expand household incomes.
“The ultimate test of the reforms will, therefore, be whether businesses can produce more at lower cost and households can afford more with their incomes,” he said.