By Charles Nwaoguji
The Senior Special Adviser to the President on Public Sector Matters and Secretary, National Action Committee African Continental Free Trade Area (NAC-AfCFTA), Francis Anatogu, has noted that to move the nation’s economy towards a non-oil economy, each state should aim to build capacity to produce and export at least a billion dollar product or services on an annual basis.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Institute of Public Analysts of Nigeria (IPAN) mandatory training workshop in Abuja, Anatogu said Nigeria has the opportunity to capture at least 10 per cent of Africa’s market.
“I think what we’ve been able to establish is to say that we need to have opportunity to capture at least 10 per cent of Africa’s market, we also believe that at the state level, they should aim to build capacity to produce and export at least a billion dollar product or services on an annual basis. This will take time, but at least that is the ambition that we’ve set up and gradually we will work with them to act and realize same. A billion dollar per state, this is a lot considering where we are today but that is the kind of ambition if we are going to move our economy more towards non-oil.
“IPAN is a regulator and has a lot to do in the area of capacity development and in the area of preparing businesses to excel. So, we will be working around implementation plans. Like I said, one of those pillars is market access and quality is a key element of that market access. So we have identified a number of initiatives and programmes we will be working with.”
“There are a lot of projects already ongoing in the infrastructure space. There’s a lot ongoing in terms of access to finance by the by the Central Bank, BOI Development Bank and others. There’s a lot being done by SMEDAN at any piece in terms of growing capacity of our people to export.”