The Nation Newspaper

Tag: china

  • INAC Expo: 27 countries, others showcase culture

    27 countries and states  were  in Abuja to display  their culture,  arts and crafts at the 11th edition of International Arts and Crafts (INAC) Expo.

    Among the participating countries were China, Hungary, Gambia, Trinidad and Tobago, Bangladesh, Chad, India, Iran, Burkina Faso, Pakistan, Sudan and many other countries.

    The impressive event was also an opportunity for many unemployed Nigerians to acquire free vocational training in arts and craft. The event  was declared open by the publisher of the Abuja-based Leadership newspapers, Mr. Sam Ndah-Isaiah. Also present at the opening ceremony were the Minister of Women Affairs, Hajia Aisha Abubakar; the Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji  Lai Mohammed, represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mrs. Grace Gekpe; and a representative of the Emir of Zazzau, Alhaji Shehu Idris.

    Delivering a paper titled: Networking for Arts and Crafts to the World: Prospects and Challenges, the Chief Executive Officer of Le Look Nigeria Limited, Mrs. Chinwe Ezenwa,  called on Nigerians to embrace the nation’s art and craft industry as a commercial venture.

    She said African art and craft industry is currently enjoying huge international acceptability and has the prospects of not only alleviating poverty, but also creating jobs. Ezenwa said  at the time she started the production of Afrocentric crafts as beauty items, European designers were the order of the day in Nigeria. But this has changed with the current huge demand for African crafts.

    Her words: “At the time we started, the prospects were not there then, as our products were competing against famous and infamous international labels. Our women    and men were preoccupied in wearing European and Western outfits. Over time, as we approached a new millennium, things began to change. Afrobeat through Fela, Ebenezer Obey, King Sunny Ade and other famous musicians started making waves outside the Nigerian shores.

    “We, on our part, invested in research to understand how and what was accepted internationally. We embraced training; we attended fairs locally and internationally. We became visible and could no longer be ignored by our own Nigerians as the Made in Nigeria campaign became the order of the day.

    “Then came the boom-Made in Nigeria, Made in Africa, the ankara revolution that we had already keyed into a long time ago and waited for the opportunity.”

    Ezenwa said Nigeria has never had the opportunity that it is having currently to expand its arts and craft to all parts of the world.

    In his welcome address, the Director- General of the National Council of Arts and Culture (NCAC), Otunba Segun Runsewe, said even though the arts of craft expo  was in its 11th edition, he saw the need to drastically improve on the expo by not limiting it to the just Africa.

    He said:“This flagship programme of the NCAC was conceived in 2008 as a platform for craft men and women all over Africa and beyond to make contact, interact, showcase their arts and crafts products , exchange ideas and skills, network for investment partners.

    “I am delighted to note that this exposition has lived up to the expectation of bringing about regional integration, continental unity as well as unveiling the economic opportunities in the arts and crafts sector.”

    Runsewe said the decision to change the expo’s name from African Festival of Arts and Culture (AFAC) Expo to International Arts and Crafts (INAC) Expo was taken last year in view of the growing popularity and the need to reflect the global relevance and outlook of the programme. He said having consolidated itself as at the regional level, it became imperative to launch into the global arena so that Nigerian craft men could network with the world.

    Speaking on the expo and their participation, the head  of the Bangladesh  from their country’s embassy in  Nigeria, Mr. Yamin Khan, said:  “The main aim of our participation is that we don’t want to stagnate in a certain place. We want to expand our traditional craft. We want to expand our traditional craft to everywhere.”

    Asked if he was satisfied with the organization and level of participation at the expo, he said: “Of course, there are many booths here. We can share with each other. It is through this kind of programme that we can share with each other.  What we are having, they can pick from us and what we are not having, we can pick from them.  This is the way to go. This is the way to show your craft and your products. This way, it will help you to expand your business all over the world.”

    Some of the participating countries took time out to celebrate their day and showcase their culture. Among these countries was the People’s Republic of China which put up a beautiful show to the admiration and satisfaction of visitors and participants.

  • China negotiates gas deals with Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, others

    Chinese state-owned energy giant, CNOOC been negotiating gas supply deals with Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) suppliers to ensure gas supply, including dealers from Nigeria, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Qatar and Russia, according to an online platform, Oilprice.com.

    However, due to the ongoing trade war between the US and China, CNOOC spot purchases of LNG is coming to a halt amid Beijing’s retaliatory tariff on US-LNG imports.

    But with an eye on last winter’s natural gas supply debacle, Chinese state-owned energy giant CNOOC has pledged a 20 per cent rise in gas supply, the company has said.

    The company, one of three state-run oil majors, said it will supply 24.6 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas during the heating season that kicks off this week, up 20 per cent year-on-year, to meet rising natural gas demand in the country.

    China is in the process of replacing over reliance on coal usage for both industrial and residential end users to offset rampant air pollution, particularly in its larger urban centers. By government mandate, at least 10 per cent of the country’s energy mix needed for power generation by 2020 must be natural gas, with further earmarks set for 2030.

    CNOOC, the country’s largest oil and gas producer, said 6.1 bcm of natural gas will be supplied to seven northern provinces and municipalities, up 63.5 per cent from last year. The company added that most of the natural gas it’s supplying this year is from offshore fields, coal bed gas and imported liquefied natural gas (LNG).

    LNG tariffs will also come full circle, since other LNG producers will likely increase their spot prices in the mid-term to a point just under US LNG prices including a tariff, with Chinese firms being forced to pay the extra price. Yet, unlike last year when China relied more on spot purchases to fill supply gaps, the country’s oil companies have largely been filling up storage more than last year’s levels. Also, putting downward pressure on LNG spot prices in Asia are forecasts for a warmer winter in the Northern hemisphere.

    El Nino, the warming in Pacific Ocean sea-surface temperatures, has emerged and there’s an increased chance of it continuing through the Northern Hemisphere spring, the Japan Meteorological Agency said on Friday. The weather pattern usually causes warmer temperatures during winters in Japan. “With warmer weather expected now, the demand pull from China would be even less,” Xizhou Zhou, an analyst at IHS Markit, told Bloomberg. “The kind of tightness in the market we had seen last year will unlikely repeat.”

    Na Min, a senior analyst for oil and gas at Bloomberg New Energy Finance said “the chance of a ‘cold winter’ is quite small this year.”

    LNG prices have tumbled for the past seven weeks amid weaker demand from North Asia while companies in Japan, China and South Korea (the world’s three largest LNG importers) already nearing full storage capacity. LNG prices in Asia, which are either linked directly to an oil price formulation or the global oil price trajectory, are extending its longest losing streak since January 2016, when Brent crude prices dipped below the $30 per barrel price point.

    Other Chinese oil companies are also gearing up for the winter season. Sinopec, the world’s largest refiner by volume, said on Monday it would supply 18.17 billion cubic meters of natural gas during the heating season, up 17.7 percent year-on-year, with supplies to seven northern province-level regions set to increase by 29.1 per cent. A report earlier this week in the China Daily said Sinopec has been speeding up the construction and operation of new pipelines in northern regions in addition to increasing its spot purchases of LNG. All of the company’s three LNG terminals are expected to run at full capacity.

  • Tapping into China’s open market

    SIR: The prime worry for most commentaries about China and Nigeria bilateral cooperation is what can be done to breach the gap of the trade imbalance, which is in favour of China. Even as Chinese ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. Zhou Pingjian said in his recent interview that “China never deliberately pursues trade surplus… and correctly argued that “trade pattern is more of a natural outcome of the competitiveness of product and consumer’s choice”; many would argue that China as major responsible power should take deliberate measures or steps to grant access to her market, the only means to reduce or even eliminate the trade imbalance between her and Nigeria.

    To build the necessary capacity to access international market and the particularly Chinese huge market would require a focused and consistent national policy targeted at creating value-added products, sufficiently competitive which arises from cost efficiency in the factors of production.

    The high cost of production remains one of the most serious challenges of Nigeria’s access to highly competitive international market and while in the long term, sustained investment in strategic infrastructures like power plants, transport network – high-ways, and railways, seaports, etc. are the right way to go.In the short term, such strategic engagement as China-Nigeria industrial and production capacity, where China’s excess industrial capacity is deployed to priority sectors to shore up the country’s production capacity would fill industrial capacity gap. The nexus of strategic industrial and production capacity cooperation between Nigeria and China combined with a considerably fair access to the huge Chinese market makes China a unique opportunity in Nigeria’s effort at economic recovery, sustainable and inclusive growth.

    With China obviously central to realizing key Nigeria’s economic priorities, the question remains of how Nigeria engages China? In a report by an international management consultancy, Mckinsey& Co published in June last year under the title of “Dance of Lions and Dragons: How are Africa and China engaging, and how will the partnership evolve?, it grouped Nigeria among China’s solid partners in Africa that needs to get strategic. The report defined this group of China’s partners in Africa who have done well with China but not necessarily as a result of a purposeful strategic approach, adding that most in this group have simply benefited from other factors. It singled out Nigeria, noting “that it is actually the big market that is bound to attract a fair share of Chinese investors.” The report defined some countries as robust partners to China, “that have strategically defined relationship with China, with success on both the government-to-government and private sector fronts.

    Even as a choice strategic partner, a rare privilege in bilateral relations which Beijing extended to only two other African countries-South Africa and Egypt along with Nigeria since 2005, the imperative to define clear strategic road-map to engage China more robustly has become compelling.

    Among ministerial and other federal government agencies that have to deal with China, there is more of bitter and hostile rivalry than coordination and cooperation. Any China policy, no matter how coherently articulated which is even far from the case, would be vitiated by the implementing agencies.

    More worrying is that in past decade or more, Nigeria has sent political appointees as head of Nigeria’s missions in China. These political appointees who do not hide their ambitions for elected political offices at home divide their time between Beijing and their political support group in Nigeria.

    Nigeria needs to get into the driving seat and set out on the strategic road-map for the interesting and executing phase of not only Nigeria-China bilateral relation but on the expressway of the wider China-Africa cooperation.

     

    • Charles Onunaiju,

    Utako, Abuja.

  • Chinese Silk Road: Debt peonage for Nigeria?

    China is out to conquer the world, and many countries have unwittingly fallen victim to its geopolitical strategic agenda. Yet there is an emergent corollary; worries about rising global indebtedness to China.  As a superpower, China continues to assert itself on the global stage, underpinning a campaign that commenced well over a decade ago, with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) also known as the “Silk Road”.

    Undergirding the Belt and Road Initiative, is a trillion-dollar loan subvention that seeks to connect countries across continents on a trade trajectory, with China at its core. The ambitious plan involves the building of railway and road infrastructure to connect China with Central and West Asia, the Middle East and Europe (the “Belt”) and creating a 6,000km sea-route connecting China to South East Asia, Oceania and North Africa (the “Road”).

    Beneficiaries of China’s goodwill are many. So too are the countries, mostly African nations, already defaulting on their Chinese loans. The trend is deeply alarming. In 2017, with more than $1 billion in debt to China, Sri Lanka handed over one of its ports to companies owned by the Chinese government. Now Djibouti, home to the U.S. military’s main base in Africa, seems set to cede control of another key port to a Beijing-linked company.

    China-Nigeria relations is paradoxical and defined by two contradicting aphorism. While its commonsensical that “You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” it is equally pragmatic to “Beware of strangers bearing Greek gifts.” Nigeria-Sino political and economic relations go back to 1971, when the two countries established formal diplomatic relations and exchanged envoys.

    The tides of events were drastically altered between 2004 and 2006, following the visit of the then-Chinese President Hu Jintao to Nigeria. President Hu Jintao addressed a joint session of the National Assembly and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) establishing a strategic partnership with Nigeria. That MOU singularly marked the new phase of Nigeria-Sino relations that consequently led to China becoming Nigeria’s biggest economic partner.

    Certain economic complementarities are directly responsible for the growing relationship between China and Nigeria.  First, is that Nigeria is developmentally challenged given its infrastructure deficits. Secondly, China has developed one of the world’s largest and most competitive construction industries with particular expertise in the civil works, considered critical for infrastructure development. The latter when combined with China’s ability to provide presumably soft loans made its expansive incursion into Nigeria relatively easy.

    With over $6 billion Chinese investment between 2012 and 2017, Nigeria ranks second behind Egypt, as Africa’s largest recipient of Chinese investment. Naturally, Nigeria may well join the swelling club of Chinese debtors, of which Sri-Lanka, Pakistan, Djibouti, Maldives, and Laos are the most heavily indebted.

    China’s foray and the attendant challenges were not instant. In his 2013 op-ed in the Financial Times, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the then Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, opined that “Africa must get real about Chinese ties,” while decrying the way that China operates across the continent. According to Sanusi, “China takes our primary goods and sells us manufactured ones.  This was also the essence of colonialism. The British went to Africa and India to secure raw materials and markets. Africa is now willingly opening itself up to a new form of imperialism…China is no longer a fellow under-developed economy – it is the world’s second-biggest, capable of the same forms of exploitation as the West. It is a significant contributor to Africa’s deindustrialisation and underdevelopment.”

    The concerns notwithstanding, Nigeria and China concluded a currency swap agreement recently, in which 16bn Renminbi (RMB) is to provide adequate local currency liquidity to Nigerian and Chinese businessmen. Since 2014, Chinese currency, the Yuan, has assumed greater prominence in world trade with some countries considering it a global reserves currency.  With the deal, Nigeria became the fourth country in Africa (after Ghana, South Africa and Zimbabwe) to sign on to Yuan for its trading and financial market transactions.

    China-Nigeria investment relations just like any bilateral relationship, has some advantages and disadvantages. Thus, whether the Chinese Silk Road represents Eureka or a debt peonage for Nigeria can only be determined in the near future.  The pointer, for now, is on the balance and the pendulum could swing either way. An optimal outcome from Nigeria-China relationship will depend on the policies and institutions that are put in place by Nigerian authorities to maximize the complementary effects and to minimize the competing and deleterious effects.

    Meanwhile, China is virtually present everywhere in Nigeria, even as information about its engagement and activities remain opaque and fragmented. It would amount to folly not to monitor China activities rigorously. There is therefore, need to establish a coordinating body on China. This body, preferably a technical arm of an existing body, should be empowered to scrutinize and evaluate agreements, memoranda and any other articles of association between Nigeria and China in keeping with provisions of Presidential Executive Order No.5.

    The ultimate objective of the proposed body is to spell out the cost as well as the benefits of Chinese-proposed projects and/or programmes. This is similar to what a legal department would do to an agreement before initialising/signing. The proposed technical committee in its assignment, must have taken into consideration domestically available resources including skills and ensure that as much as possible, the local content of the agreement is high enough not only for the purpose of generating employment for Nigerians, but also to develop their technological capability.

    The optics and narratives on Nigeria-Sino relations remains mixed. Nigeria’s economic dalliance with China has also elicited concerns outside Nigeria, including warnings from the U.S. government that Nigeria and other African countries should be wary of Chinese deals.  While U.S. rebuke may not be entirely altruist, it retains some validity. Accordingly prevailing concerns that China’s incursion into Nigeria might have negative consequences in the long-term cannot be over exaggerated.

     

    • Chendois a Research Associate at Selonnes Consult; Obaze is MD/CEO Selonnes Consult in Awka.

  • Mid-term elections: U.S. warns Russia, China, Iran to stay off

    The U.S. has warned against foreign interference in its mid-term elections, particularly from Russia, China and Iran.

    All the 435 House of Representatives seats, representing the 50 states are up for grabs in the election, holding on Tuesday.

    Thirty five of the 100 senate seats are being contested and gubernatorial elections are to be held in 36 states.

    “The United States will not tolerate foreign interference in our elections from Russia, China, Iran or other nations,” U.S. law enforcement agencies warned.

    The agencies are the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – in coordination with federal, state, local and private sector partners nationwide.

    In a joint statement, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, DNI Director Dan Coats, and FBI Director Christopher Wray said they were continuing efforts to protect the elections.

    “Our agencies have been working in unprecedented ways to combat influence efforts and to support state and local officials in securing our elections, including efforts to harden election infrastructure against interference.

    “Our goal is clear: ensure every vote is counted and counted correctly.

    “At this time we have no indication of compromise of our nation’s election infrastructure that would prevent voting, change vote counts or disrupt the ability to tally votes.

    “But Americans should be aware that foreign actors – and Russia in particular – continue to try to influence public sentiment and voter perceptions through actions intended to sow discord.

    “They can do this by spreading false information about political processes and candidates, lying about their own interference activities, disseminating propaganda on social media and through other tactics,” the agencies said.

    They, however, said the American public could mitigate these efforts by remaining informed, reporting suspicious activity and being vigilant consumers of information.

    The agencies said actions that interfered in the elections were a threat to U.S. democracy and identifying and preventing this interference was one of our highest priorities.

    “On Sept. 12, President Trump signed an executive order that makes clear the U.S. government will not hesitate to defend our electoral processes or punish those who attempt to undermine them.”

    “Our agencies have been making preparations for nearly two years in advance of these elections and are closely engaged with officials on the ground to help them ensure the voting process is secure.

    “Americans can rest assured that we will continue to stay focused on this mission long after polls have closed,” the agencies said.

    NAN

     

  • Expert calls for community participation in healthcare delivery

    A public health consultant, Dr. Ranti Ekpo, has advocated increased community participation in primary healthcare delivery in the country in order to guarantee greater access to healthcare by a citizenry particularly those in the grassroots.

    She also said appropriate healthcare delivery systems that works for people in rural communities rather than policies imported from other climes like China and Asia should be developed and implemented in our communities in order to accelerate access to healthcare by our local communities.

    Dr Ekpo made this known during a sensitization workshop organized by a non-governmental organization, Afterschool, to engage with the public as well as relevant stakeholders on steps to improve healthcare delivery in our communities

    The consultant maintained that primary healthcare is quite large and government alone cannot own all of it, so in order to improve on its efficiency, the healthcare system can be designed in an 80-20 ratio where government owns 80% and the community owns 20%.

    “We need to develop appropriate healthcare delivery system that works for us because it is something that has worked across the world.  You cannot bring policies that are good in Asia, China or even from Ghana to Nigeria and think that it will work.

    “Just because we are black or a developing nation does not mean that whatever works in other nations will work here. So in that way, I have seen that in different local government areas in Cross River, each one has peculiar problems and they are in a peculiar environment.

    Read Also: Healthcare for immigrants in 30 languages

    “What is working in riverine areas will definitely not work in mountainous areas, in that way if we talk to the people themselves particularly with those who live there, work there and do know what the challenges are; if you sit down with them you will find solutions to some of these problems,” she said.

    Dr. Ekpo who is also a medical practitioner stressed that in addition to community ownership, appropriate technology can also be used to train residents of these communities in basic healthcare delivery so as to help address the problem of staffing which besets most of our primary healthcare centres.

    “There are several centres but staffing is a problem as well as equipments. For instance, why do you bring a big machine that is not needed to an area where all they want is drugs to treat malaria. So the community has to get involved and then we recruit people who live in those communities to be trained appropriately and deploy appropriate technology for our own people.

    “Government cannot do everything and so the communities have to get involved in the ownership and management of some of these centres. Primary healthcare is very wide  and so government cannot own all of it so it can be designed  in a 80-20 ratio  where government owns 80% of it while the community owns 20%”, she advised.

    Also speaking, the Director General of the State Primary Health Care development Agency, Dr. Betta Edu said the government is addressing the problem of manpower in these centres and has recently secured approval for the State School of Nursing and midwifery which lost accreditation since 2012 and so the state has not been able to produce nurses.

    She said in order to address the problem of staffing, the government recently introduced a task shifting policy  where most of the task  which used to be done by doctors, nurses and midwives  is shifted to  Community Health and Extension Workers at the community health level.

    She said the government the government as part of the save one million lives programme has recruited 196 health volunteers that will help at the community level and   the first set of graduates from the school of midwifery whose accreditation was secured will be out next year and there is an arrangement in place for them to serve in the state’s primary healthcare centers.

  • China, Nigeria, 33 others sign bilateral agreements

    China has signed bilateral agreement with Nigeria and 33 other countries regarding the promotion and protection of investments, the Director-General, Regional Procurement, African Development Bank (AfDB), Baba Imora Abdullahi, has said.

    Abdullahi, who stated this yesterday at the African Economic Merit Award in Abuja, said  China’s support to Africa’s development through the AfDB was being channelled through Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF). He said as the implementation of the AGTF accelerates, AfDB would explore the possible increase of resources to the Fund, he added.

    He said currently, China is a rising player in Africa’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

    According to him, Chinese investment in the African continent is not new and has grown over 100 times in the last one decade.

    From $0.5billion in 2003 to $39.9billion in 2016, he said this was significant even though it was low compared to the 2016 stock in Hong Kong at $780.7billion, Cayman Islands at $104.2billion and Virgin Island at $88.8billion.

  • Nigeria gaining ‘nearly nothing’ from China trade – Agbakoba

    A former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), on Thursday lamented Nigeria’s trade imbalance with China.

    Agbakoba warned that the country was losing business opportunities by not taking advantage of its bilateral relations with the Asian superpower.

    According to him, the country’s large population provides a ready market for Chinese goods, but Nigeria, being import-dependent, gets “nearly nothing” in return.

    He spoke at the annual conference of the Nigerian Institute of Chartered Arbitrators (NICArb), which held at Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos.

    The conference’s theme was, “Enforcement of arbitral awards and economic growth in West Africa.”

    Agbakoba said: “The trade between Nigeria and China is so skewed in favour of China and we are getting nothing; we are import-dependent; everything is imported. If everything continues to be imported where is our hope? We import toothpicks from China.

    “I was listening to the Director-General of NAFDAC (National Food and Drugs Administration and Control) today (Thursday) talking about drugs; we import everything. This has just got to change.”

    He warned Nigeria to be wary of becoming overexposed to Chinese loans in a way that could affect its sovereignty.

    Read Also: Agbakoba decries high cost of election petitions

    Agbakoba said: “The other day I saw in Zambia, the head of Zambian Police decorating a Chinese policeman who had taken over the Zambian Police because Zambia defaulted on a loan. So, there are wider implications.

    “There is no way we can develop if we don’t take an interest in the immediate environment.”

    The rights activist lamented that the country was losing jobs and revenue from a failure to enact a national arbitration policy, as obtainable in China, Singapore and most Western countries.

    He observed that despite the existence of a highly competent arbitration community in Nigeria, most of the high-value disputes involving companies operating in Nigeria are still being taken abroad to be resolved by foreigners.

    He explained that a national arbitration policy could compel multinationals doing business in Nigeria to put a clause in their contracts stipulating that all arising disputes must be resolved in Nigeria.

    Agbakoba said: “When (former) Governor (Babatunde) Fashola was in office and I was the NBA President, I approached him and there were some policy initiatives by (former) Governor Fashola, to the effect that all the trades and transactions within Lagos State had embedded in them an arbitration clause making Lagos the venue and that created jobs.

    “We can’t sit down here and be training as arbitrators and becoming fellows and we don’t have jobs. The key thing in arbitration is to have work to do.”

    Also speaking, the 2nd Vice-President of NICArb, Prof Fabian Ajogwu (SAN), shared in Agbakoba’s concern that Nigerian-origin disputes were being taken abroad for resolution “to the detriment of jobs and wealth creation in Nigeria”.

    He blamed the trend on “the consumption attitude” of Nigerians and speed with which Nigerian courts set aside arbitration awards.

    The conference had in attendance the Presiding Justice, Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, Justice Mohammed Garba, who represented appeal court President, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa.

    Also in attendance were the President, National Industrial Court, Justice Babatunde Adejumo; and Mr Muniru Liadi, who represented NBA President, Mr Paul Usoro (SAN).

  • FG working on new population control policy

    …Buhari will continue after 2019, says Zainab Ahmed

    The Federal Government is currently working on a new policy on population to determine how many children a woman will be allowed to have.
    This new policy initiative if operational, will help government check Nigeria’s ballooning population.
    Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed made this disclosure on Tuesday during a plenary session on “Sustainable Economic Opportunities: Ending the Vicious Cycle at the 2018 Nigerian Economic Summit.
    She said government was presently consulting with both religious and traditional leaders across the country on the issue after which a policy will be formulated on the matter.
    Zainab Ahmed expressed regret at the controversy generated over the  imposition of fine on telecommunications company, MTN on repatriation of profits.
     Zainab Ahmed who described the incident as “ very damaging for us” blamed the telecommunications company for the episode because of its refusal to provide required information to settle the dispute.
    She noted that “MTN failed to cooperate with CBN auditors who were mandated to resolve the matter.”
    Giving the fears generated by the fine among investors, Zainab maintained that “there has not been any occasion in recent times when investors had difficulty in repatriating their capital.”
    With regards to other economic parameters, the finance minister admitted that government has not doing enough in the areas of job creation and social investment programmes but pleaded that government officials needed the input of private sector operators on how to develop the economy.
    According to the finance minister, “we must find out ways to engage our youths to be active, ensure that transportation is effective, available and reasonably priced”. She said there was need to support the informal sector of the economy so as to absorb the current 40 percent unemployment figure.
    Zainab Ahmed also assured that the 2019 general elections will not hamper government’s Economic Recovery Growth Plan (ERGP) target of 2020, saying the Federal Government is committed and focused on delivering on the set goals.
    She said the federal government is aware of the sense of urgency and the need for consistency for a sustainable growth of the economy and that Mr President has asked them to keep their eyes on the ball and focus on delivering on the ERGP.
    According to the Minister, “For the past four weeks or so, we have been talking to investors and we are sending out a message that the president has asked some of us to just keep our eyes on the ball to focus on delivering on ERGP and the goals that are set.
    “He has said we should not allow ourselves to be distracted by the elections. So there are few of us that are simply working towards 2020 which is the life of the ERGP, and also very soon we are going to start developing.”
    She added that elections are going to cause some distractions but as long as we keep focus in what we have planned, we would be fine. We are sure that the President will pass through the 2019 elections and continue as president, so our focus is on 2020 not 2019.
    Speaking further on a sustained economic opportunities, the minister noted the country will harness the potentials of its large energetic youth population and their entrepreneurial zest.

    Read Also: Nigeria population to hit 350 million by 2050

    She said government is also partnering different sectors and helping small scale businesses access to finance, creating the enabling environment, improving on infrastructure and make cost of transportation reasonable low.
    She said, “We have a situation where there is an economy that is beginning to go back to the path of growth but it is also exposed to a lot of fragility.
    “Any external shocks will affect us significantly. We also have this growing unemployment that is really a threat to all of us. We have on the other hand a very large population of youths that are very active and very entrepreneurial. So that in itself is a very huge advantage to me because I think even though, we are a country that is resourceful but most important resources that we have is actually our people and our energetic youths.
    “And what we have to do as policy makers first is to find out how we can engage the youths to be productive in the society to add their contribution and also to help them into deciding what thing they should be involved in.
    “The youths for me hold the key to the future to be able to raise Nigeria from where it is so that we can become another good example that maybe in the years to come we can be sited along side Indonesia, China and Malaysia.
    “What we are doing now is significant but it’s not enough, we need to do a lot more. The people that are in government don’t have all of the expertise that is required to really pull our country and make that quantum stride which is required.
    “So we have to engage more with the private sector. We are doing a lot of engagement, but we have to enable small scale businesses to access finance, we have to provide basic infrastructure, especially power for businesses whether it’s a barber or hair saloon or a small restaurant or cafeteria or a tailor to be able to do their business without having to run their generator or ramping up their cost.
    “So I see this economic summit as an opportunity for us to lead a frank discussions on the things that we are doing right, but how we can round them up so that it is felt. The national social investment programme is well designed but we today covered maybe 9.2 million people including about 8.7 million children that are being fed. But if you take out the children that are being fed, the number of people that have been enabled to be employed is still under 2 million, so that is still not enough.
    “We hope to be able to expand that programme and there is no reason why we cannot be partnering with private sector even in running this social investment programme. We have found out that there is a need to enable as many people as possible to be involved in the financial sector just helping people to open bank accounts. So whatever it is that they need passes through the financial system. Then it enables them to save and then it enables them to access more finance.”
    She gave the assurance that governance would not stop because of the coming elections as “Mr. President has mandated some of us to concentrate on the economy and shun election matters.
    Another member of the panel, Dr. Doyin Salami of the Lagos Business School declared that Nigeria must reverse the massive movement into poverty. He noted that of the 1.5 million candidates that yearly seek admission into universities, only 350,000 are admitted while less than half of them eventually get employment after graduation.
    He identified lack of capacity as a major problem of government saying “it is erroneous to assume that government always knows there is a problem. “When they know there is a problem, they may not have the wherewithal to solve it. We must deal with the problem of capacity in government.”
    Salami identified abysmally low wages as major contributor to low level corruption in the country decrying that there was upward concentration of income declaring “ we need to go back and review our reward and remuneration system”.
    Also contributing, Director, School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, United States of America, Prof. Peter Lewis observed that that the presence of corruption in the system was not an excuse for poverty and underdevelopment.
    He however, insisted that the reward system must be attractive. “There must be po!icy consistency to give assurance to investors.”
    He said there were enough talents and good policies in Nigeria but identified inconsistencies, lack of collective action, coordination and government inability to galvanise citizens as major reasons for lack of development in Nigeria.
    In his view, the executive arm of government must show a sense of urgency and that it is important to have a stable and capable economic management team in place.

  • China bans pigs and pork products imports from Moldova

    China has banned imports of pigs and pork products from Moldova to prevent spread of African swine fever, Chinese customs said on Wednesday.

    The ban followed five African swine fever outbreaks reported in Moldova, the customs said in a statement on its website.

    China also ordered the return or destruction of products shipped from the European country, customs added.

    China has banned imports of pigs, wild boar and products from Bulgaria and Belgium following outbreak of African swine fever, as well as imports from Japan after a regular swine fever outbreak.