The Nigeria Employers Consultative Association has urged the Federal Government should take a multifaceted approach, including dealing with oil theft, to increase foreign exchange inflows and strengthen the Naira.
According to Vanguard, in a press conference announcing the upcoming 2nd edition of the Employers’ Summit in Lagos yesterday, the Director General of NECA, Mr. Wale-Smatt Oyerinde, suggested that the federal government takes a multifaceted approach.
“We want to call on the current administration that for you to actually address the issue of forex, you must take a multidimensional approach while we focus on dealing with the oil theft in the Niger Delta, we should also focus on dealing with the rapid increase in oil production so that we can address the forex issue.”
“It is also crucial that we harness the number of natural resources that we have in this country so that we can become net exporters, not just of cocoa and rubber but of all the natural resources that we have that will increase the pool of foreign exchange, and the more forex you have, the less pressure you have from citizens requesting that forex and the stronger the potential of your local currency to grow,” he continued.
Oyerinde explained why the Summit concentrated on trade and non-oil exports, saying, “Historically, the Nigerian economy was buoyant during the pre-and post-independence years because of huge earnings from non-oil exports like cocoa, cotton, groundnut, palm oil, and so on.”
On July 10–11, 2023, in Abuja, Nigeria, a summit with the theme “Trade and non-oil export: Changing the narrative for rapid national development” is scheduled to take place.
