Nigeria needs to move away from exporting pure commodity to value-added products and services, the President, IMD Business School, Switzerland, Prof. Dominique Turpin, has said.
He said the global plunge in crude oil prices had created a chance for the Federal Government to begin the process of diversifying the economy to more productive sectors especially agriculture.
Turpin spoke in Lagos last week at a programme jointly organised by the IMD and MTN Nigeria, with the theme: ‘New dynamics for growth in Nigeria.’
“I would say that the traditional dynamics have links to commodities, mineral and so on. And I think it will take a lot of initiative to take these so-called commodities and transform them and export more high value-added products and services,” he said
“I think this is similar story in many African markets. The opportunity for Africa is really to move away from pure commodity to adding value to transformation of goods,” he added.
The IMD president further stressed that “Nigeria has been too dependent on oil and it’s very risky when you depend on one economic sector because when there is a economic change, you become a victim. To me, the solution is to try to diversify the economy.”
The IMD don, who also emphasized the importance of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises to economic growth, advised the Federal Government to provide adequate infrastructure that would enable the sector to thrive.
According to Turpin, Nigeria needs to tap the robust opportunities in her agricultural sector by building efficient value chain in the agribusiness.
He said, “You know there is big opportunity when it comes to agro-business. This is critical because in this part of Africa, there is a shortage of food, there is no efficiency in the food system.
“And given the growing population that you see in this part of the world, I think agro-business is one of the relatively easy sectors you can inject money and make sure that value added is being created.”
He added, “And then you have all the small businesses relating to machine tool, textile and things like that are needed in a huge country like Nigeria. So, there are lot of opportunities that every challenge the government is facing can be, to some extent, solved by a better cooperation between government and the businesses.”
Turpin, however, said Nigerian banks would need to assist the economy to grow by lending money to the SMEs and other productive sectors.
Source: Punch
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