By NASD
A year ago, the Federal Government of Nigeria needed a plan.
The price of the product that generated the bulk of the country’s foreign exchange earnings had hit a 13 year low – there was even a threatened glut in the product itself.
Alternative industry that would have provided a buffer was closer to extinction after 20 odd years of neglect during the good (?) oil boom times.
Limited infrastructure and bureaucratic duplications also came into stark relief as major blocks to economic progress.
For the first time in 25 years, Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product contracted by 1.5 percent (Population growth however continued at a carefree 2.6 percent).
In March 2017, therefore, the Federal Government of Nigeria released the Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP).
The Economic Recovery and Growth Plan if implemented perfectly will revive economic activity by restoring sustainable growth, building a globally competitive economy, and investing in human capital development.
More importantly, the plan recognises the need for private sector participation to attract private sector capital for industrialisation.
Last week, the drivers of the ERGP, The Ministry of Budget and National Planning in collaboration with Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission moved the plan into action by holding a sensitisation program on “focus labs” (virtual rooms set up to assist job creation and ease investments flow into the six ERGP priority sectors of Agriculture and Transport, Manufacturing and Processing, and Power and Gas).
By opening the labs, the Ministry and NIPC intend to smooth out bottlenecks and ease investment flows into pre-screened projects that meet defined criteria.
In sync with the federal government’s efforts to identify worthy and promising projects, NASD has created an enterprise portal that will showcase growth-oriented enterprises in a standardised formal.
We believe this will be a critical feeder into the Focus Labs and a strong complement to the aspirations of the ERGP.
Currently, NASD has signed onboarded some strategic partners and Incubator companies into an online environment, ultimately assisting in easing investment flows into worthy, critical and sustainable projects.
Even as we venture upstream into primary markets, NASD’s mission will continue creating liquidity transparently.
