As Nigeria’s economic indices improve, The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udo Udoma, on Thursday affirmed that the country is already moving out of economic recession.
Udoma made the declaration in Abuja while inaugurating the Joint Planning Committee for the 23rd Nigerian Economic Summit.
The summit to be held in October this year is the single largest gathering of economic and financial experts from the private and public sector.
The theme of this year’s summit is “Actualising the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan: Opportunities, productivity and employment.”
Udoma said that while national debates in the past had centred around how the country could get out of recession, such was no longer the case with the adoption of the ERGP.
He said as the country is already on its way out of economic recession, the current efforts of the Federal Government is on how to build the current momentum of this growth trajectory.
This, according to him, became imperative so as to ensure that the growth is maintained post-recesssion with positive impact on the people.
He said, “The 23rd Nigerian Economic Summit is coming at a time when the national debate is no longer about how to get out of recession-we are already moving in that direction with the adoption of the ERGP.
“Focus will therefore be on specific sectors such as infrastructure, manufacturing, renewable energy, housing, agribusiness,creative industries,retail trade and digitalisation.
“The summit will essentially be used to see how we can intensify efforts to implement the ERGP to create opportunities,tackle unemployment and improve productivity in Nigeria.”
Udoma added that the summit would be used to get stakeholders’ commitments toward a private sector led investment approach as set out in the ERGP.
He explained that the summit would also complement the Federal Government’s effort to create over 15 million direct jobs by 2020 through agriculture, manufacturing, construction, and services among others.
The Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Mr Laoye Jaiyeola said the committee will deliver a summit that would meet all expected outcomes.
He told the minister that the committee will use the summit to promote and support the actualisation of the ERGP.
