By Omodele Adigun
The Chief Investment Officer of Honeywell Group (HGL), Otu Hughes, has said strategic and progressive policy formulation is vital for increased local and foreign direct investments to scale national economic growth.
He said this during a chat with journalists at the 28th Nigeria Economic Summit, convened in Abuja recently by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG).
According to a 2022 World Bank Report on Nigeria’s poverty assessment, as many as four in ten Nigerians live below the national poverty line.
However, a recent report by the United Nations Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) reveals that lifting 100 million Nigerians out of multidimensional poverty by 2025 is still achievable.
Hughes, who emphasized the need for dialogue between public and private enterprises, explained that it is important to cushion the volatility of the foreign exchange market to help local and foreign direct investors make sound investment decisions.
According to Hughes, “It is ideal to have some clarity on market dynamics. This will make it easier for people to plan. If businesses don’t plan, it becomes difficult to make decisions.”
The problem of low foreign direct investment is not peculiar to Nigeria. Despite its growth in foreign direct investment, investment flows to Africa accounted for only 5.2 per cent of global FDI in 2021.
Economic diversification is still a struggle in Nigeria, and the non-oil sector still plays second fiddle to the oil sector. With the lowest oil output since 1990, Nigeria’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) fell by $1.6 billion in June 2022, compared with a drop of $322.9 million in the previous quarter.
Highlighting the role of the private sector in ‘delivering macroeconomic stability for shared prosperity’, one of the summit’s four-pillared agenda, Hughes stressed the need for a partnership built on transparency and accountability.
He added that there is a need to have multi-stakeholder discussions on actualizing Nigeria’s economic goals. He said, “We must work together to actualise the ideas that have been discussed during the summit.