The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) and the Ministry of Finance, Budget and Economic Planning recently held the 26th National Economic Summit (NES#26) Group Conference, themed: “Building Partnerships for Resilience”.
The summit held virtually and physically at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel and was attended by the Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.
In his welcome address, the Chairman of NESG, Mr Asue Ighodalo, said the focus of the summit is primarily on building partnerships for resilience of Nigeria’s households, businesses, and the general economy.
“This became important due to the pandemic and its far reaching health and economic consequences. The restiveness of our huge youth population, a population growth rate that exceeds our rate of economic growth and development; the high rate of unemployment and underemployment as well as the resultant high levels of poverty in our economy.”
Prof. Osinbajo, who delivered the opening remark on behalf of President Buhari, remarked that the theme is quite appropriate at this time in the history of the nation, as vital partnerships are quite critical lessons to be learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic and emphasized the need for both public and private sectors to work together to transform the economy and build a fair and just society.
According to Prof. Osinbajo, “Our national journey to economic prosperity is a long one, so we must all certainly work together. As we saw, partnerships were essential when we were faced with the serious challenge of combatting COVID-19 pandemic. They are also necessary for framing medium and long-term development plans. They are needed for transforming our economy and certainly indispensable to ensuring that we build a fair and just society.
“We saw the key role that partnerships played in our national effort to combat the COVID-19 crisis. While, Federal and State Governments worked together to manage the health response and ensure the establishment of isolation centres, availability of test kits, personal protective equipment, and medicines. The private sector also played an active role as individual entities and also worked together in groups like the Coalition Against COVID-19.”
(READ MORE: Nigeria to exit recession by first quarter of 2021)
The Executive Secretary/CEO of Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), Ms. Yewande Sadiku, who spoke during the session on a topic, “Attracting Foreign Investments” said there is a greater improvements by Nigeria as shown in the Ease of Doing Business ranking in the last five years and more could be achieved if the government institutionalize its economic reform process.
What you need to know
- NES#26 is the 26th Nigerian Economic Summit and the annual economic summit of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG). It is expected to focus on building strategic partnerships and cooperation between governments, businesses, and the civil society for resilience.
- To drive greater attention to subnational investment opportunities in Nigeria, NIPC had developed the Book of States which contains summaries of critical information about 36 States and the FCT needed for investment promotion and facilitation.
- NIPC is also working with the States to identifying high net-worth individuals that can invest in the profiled investment opportunities across the states.
