BEVERLY HILLS, December 07, (THEWILL) – The President of the African Development Bank, AfDB, Mr. Akinwumi Adesina has noted that there were still problems in Nigeria’s foreign exchange, forex market, which must be sorted out, stressing that this must be done for Nigeria to get out recession.
Speaking on how to get Nigeria out of recession, the former Nigerian minister of Agriculture stated that the country must sort out its foreign exchange policy and incentivise the private sector.
He made this call at a press conference in Abuja, during the 11th African Economic Forum, which started on Monday and is slated to run till Wednesday.
According to him, “I think the government has taken some tough decisions, I think when the price of petroleum products subsidy was removed, it was a tough decision, but a good decision.
“However, the naira was allowed to devalue, but there’s still a problem with regards the forex market, so there’s still a number of issues to be sorted out.
“(As) regards how to have macroeconomic, I mean the monetary policy and also the fiscal policy regime to be sorted out to be able to provide sufficient amount of access to foreign exchange for those that want to bring in equipment, machinery, raw materials and so on.”
The AfDB President, who pledged some $600 million from the bank for Nigeria, expressed his conviction that Nigeria needs to incentivise the private sector to get out of recession.
“I believe that as these policy instruments are well sorted out, Nigeria should be in a good position to significantly attract a significant amount of foreign investments.
“If a bird is flying, a bird always uses two wings to fly; the public side, the private sector side, is very very important for Nigeria to incentivise its way out of recession.
“Give a lot of incentives to private sector to attract a significant amount of foreign investments, especially in critical sectors; the mining sector, agriculture, and the manufacturing sector,” he stated.
