NEXIM Bank champions Nigeria’s economic diversification
The Federal Government has identified 13 products to serve as alternative sources of its revenue generation as the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari continues to search for other sources of economic prosperity in the non oil sector.
Managing Director of Nigeria’s Export and Import (NEXIM) Bank, Roberts Orya, disclosed this in Makurdi while speaking with Journalists at the end of a Three day Awareness Workshop for North Central States on the prospects of diversification to non oil sector economy.
Orya said it had become necessary for Nigeria to source for alternative ways of revenue generation following a progressive fall in the prices of petroleum products at the international oil market.
“As the largest economy in Africa and one of the fastest growing economies in the world, Nigeria can no longer afford to rely so heavily on crude oil, as the mainstay of her economy” Orya says.
“Under this arrangement, every state will have a particular product to focus on, but cumulatively, the government has identified 13 products and we are hoping that in the next 2 or 3 years, that will be the focus of the government’’.
Orya explained that part of the initiative is to ensure that government comes up with a policy of one state – one product, a system where every state will be involved in deepening the non oil sector.
‘’This is the area we intend to generate our revenue from, it is not the current situation where, 70 percent of our revenue are coming from oil’’.
As the trade policy bank of Nigerian government, Orya noted that NEXIM bank had stopped the practice of financing the exportation of raw agricultural commodities to other nations.
He said the exportation of raw agricultural products does not only encourage capital flight but also has the tendency to reduce jobs creation.
This practice will not create jobs. If you are exporting raw agricultural products, you are invariably exporting jobs and opportunities’’.
He said the Makurdi workshop was part of the aggressive public enlightenment campaigns embarked upon to sensitise members of the investing public within the North Central geopolitical zone and beyond, on the huge potentials of the export industry to encourage investment and entrepreneurship.
The NEXIM Bank MD maintained that the huge agricultural potentials of some states in the region, particularly Benue as well as its abundant human resources have the capacity to stimulate rapid economic growth of the nation through foreign exchange earnings, job and wealth creation and poverty reduction.
In addition to the prospects in agriculture, he noted that all the states within the North Central Zone of Nigeria are richly blessed with a variety of solid mineral resources with the prospects to sustain a stable and vibrant Nigerian economy and drive the process of diversification.
According to him, NEXIM Bank has been and would continue to be at the fore-front of the nation’s drive towards the expansion of the productive base of the economy by providing financial, technical and professional advisory support to business enterprises with export promotion initiatives.
Barnes Agirigi