From Uche Usim, Washington DC
Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Mr. Wale Edun, has listed what Nigeria seeks from G-24, a group of countries working together to coordinate the positions of developing countries on international monetary and financial issues.
Two main things on Edun’s request list from the bloc are higher investments and increased trade relationships.
He made the request on Tuesday at the ongoing World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings in Washington DC.
Edun, who was represented at the event by the Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Mr. Ben Akabueze, said that the two requests were crucial in ensuring a stable and growing economy by bringing tranquility to the tempestuous foreign exchange market.
Edun told the global gathering that the Nigerian government, on its part, has administered a cocktail of intervention programmes and potent policies which are already yielding desired outcomes, especially in the area of narrowing the gap between the exchanges at the parallel market and the Nigeria Foreign Exchange Market.
The Minister said that Nigeria was well positioned to attract investments in various sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture, oil and gas and other areas.
While responding to a question from a Russian journalist on areas of cooperation between the two countries, the Minister said that the last major investment of the Eastern European nation in Nigeria was the Ajaokuta Steel Company, which currently lays prostate over large sprawling greenfield.
He said that apart from.Brazil, there no country in the world with as much arable land as Nigeria and that the country should be a net exporter of food, not importer.
He justified the decision for the Dabgote Refinery to work on meeting local demands of petroleum products before eyeing export markets.
“Does it make a meaningl that domestic demand is not yet met and a company refines products and exports then Nigeria will go and import the same products from Europe?” he queries.
He said that local refining would be encouraged until local demand was met and then the nation could export products and earn foreign exchange from such exports.
On budget implementation, he said that the capital component of the 2023 supplementary budget was still being implemented and would run till June due to government’s determination to make impacts in various sectors.
He added that the 2024 budget was being implemented as planned, assuring that the citizens will be better for it.