SOURCE::: THE PUNCH
The Federal Government has indicated its intention to stop the importation of some staple items, including rice, fertilisers and sugar by 2015.
President Goodluck Jonathan made this declaration at an interactive session with the Nigerian business community in Lagos on Monday.
He also promised that before the first three months following his inauguration, there should have been considerable progress on the new economic agenda.
The President said, “Before the first three months, we shall be able to tell the people this is where we are and this is where we are going. If we need to amend the laws, we will do so.
“By the end of four years, I believe that Nigeria has no business importing rice. Nobody will come to me with a brief case and say to me he wants to import fertiliser. We have vast land, and yet, we import all these essential goods.”
He said the country needed to stimulate local production of these items, adding, “My belief is that by 2015, Nigeria has no business importing rice or fertiliser, and we also need to encourage the local production of sugar such that its importation will be a thing of the past.
“To create jobs,” he continued, “government will strongly discourage the importation of goods being locally produced or capable of being locally produced in the country.”
He added that subsidies and waivers, which he believed had had much detrimental effect on the economy, would be discouraged, and henceforth, “special consideration and concessions will be granted only to businesses delivering value chains and creating jobs.”
Jonathan assured the business community that the Federal Government would come up with an appropriate tariff structure that would not be tinkered with until 2015 in order to allow for long-term planning by the organised private sector.
He informed the august audience made up of captains of industry cutting across the manufacturing, services, banking and sundry sectors that from May 29 onwards, he would personally chair the National Economic Team, a think-tank consisting of eggheads from the both the public and private sectors.
The President said he had decided to usher in and inaugurate his new administration with a meeting and brainstorming session with the private sector, instead of dancing and merry-making because “this is what the times call for.”
He said the new dispensation would lead to a new era of economic transformation that would reposition Nigeria’s economy in the next decade
The President asked the business community to make a break with the “lamentations” of the past on the problems of the nation, insisting that a transformation programme to be worked out between the Economic Team and the private sector leaders, would usher in an era of “revelations.”
He said, “I will not want you to read the book of Lamentations to me; but we want to open the book of Revelation.”
Jonathan told the business leaders that whatever deliberation they came up with during the meeting would form the basis of a three-day retreat by the NET immediately after his inauguration.
Although the constitution of the NET was postponed to a later date, the President said he would be the chairman of the team
Speaking earlier, the Special Economic Adviser to the United Nation’s Secretary General, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, said that Nigeria should be hopeful of a great future of development.
“To double gross output like in Japan and Korea, Nigeria needs to attain about seven per cent growth rate, which it has attained, and to double per capita income (income per head), it needs to grow at about nine per cent, which I believe it will attain soon,” Sachs said.
According to him, there are five things working for the country in terms of development, including the facts that reforms are being consolidated on; democracy is being consolidated on and the beginning of the President’s term offers immeasurable opportunities.
The other two factors, according to the UN economist, are that world markets are on Nigeria’s side and technology is also on the side of the country’s further development.
.............................I DON TALK AM!!!
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