The Nation Newspaper

Tag: contributes

  • Tourism contributes 34 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, says Statistician-General

    Statistician-General of the Federation and the Chief Executive Officer of the National Bureau of Statistics, Dr. Yemi Kale, has said tourism in Nigeria contributes 34 per cent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    Kale said this in his address at the recently concluded 61th United Nations World Tourism Organisation, Commission for Africa (UNWTO-CAF) meeting that was held last week in Abuja.

    The Statistician-General said: “With respect to the direct impact of tourism on  the GDP, the economic activities that make up what we may call the tourism characteristic sectors, including art, entertainment and recreation, trade, transport, accommodation and food services, administrative, support and other services account for 34 per cent  of the GDP in 2017 and about 20 per cent of employment even though as you know not all of that 34 per cent and 20 per cent  GDP and employment contribution will be related directly to tourism activities.

    “Nevertheless, this shows you the immense potential of tourism activities in Nigeria, a $500 bn economy with about 70 per cent of that household consumption expenditure.

    “For households, particularly within rural regions, tourism can also prove to be a much-needed source of additional income.  Indeed, the tourism sector encompasses and affects several sub-sectors across the nation’s key output sectors.

    “Apart from these economic benefits that I have briefly mentioned, tourism activities also reinforce cultural pride, the preservation of our unique heritage and traditions, as well as the conservation of our environment. It is perhaps because of this far-reaching impact on all groups of society, that tourism is mentioned specifically within both the Sustainable Development Goals and the wider Agenda 2030.”

    Kale noted that the recent economic downturn in the nation’s economy had a negative impact on both domestic and international travel last year.

    His words: “The recent economic downturn presented a challenging time for tourism in Nigeria. As you know, leisure travel relies on people having discretionary income, and with many of our key markets feeling the effects of the economic recession and with household expenditure budgets squeezed, it has affected the growth in tourism characteristic sectors.  For example, annual total numbers of domestic and international air passengers declined by -8.40 per cent  and -7.13 per cent  in 2017 respectively compared with the previous year

    ”The recent economic conditions have, therefore, had a negative impact on local tourism operators. Operators have had to make hard decisions about how to position their business to ride out the storm. But I have been amazed to see just how resilient tourism related economic activities are in Nigeria.

    “Arts, entertainment and recreation and administrative support and other services activities, for example, were among the few activities that were able to keep growing for most of the recession period. Other recent data I have received shows that many tourism related activities have made necessary adjustments to weather out these difficult times.”

    The Statistician-General harped on the need for tourism statistics as it is a tool in tracking development goals, measuring progress, and improving the efficacy of policy interventions. Tourism statistics, he said, is  critical in providing the sector with the best foundation to base its decisions on and commended the UNWTO  for  spearheading  the mandate to develop a robust tourism data framework, the measuring sustainable tourism framework which moves beyond tourism statistics as just an economic tool to a holistic approach which considers the social and environmental impacts as well.

    He itemized  some the challenges of producing tourism statistics in Nigeria which include:  the high level of informality of the tourism characteristic activities with about 60 per cent  of them informal in nature; the poor attitude towards record keeping; inadequate funding and weak coordination among tourism statistics related agencies and business.

  • IFAD-assisted programme contributes $56m into Nigeria’s GDP

    The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD)-assisted Value Chain Development Programme (VCDP) contributed 56 million dollars into Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product in the 2017 production season.

    IFAD Nigeria Country Programme Officer Dr Ben Odoemena, said this yesterday in Abuja at the mid-term review of the programme.

    Odoemena explained that 9.2 million dollars of the money was injected into Benue through the IFAD programme beneficiaries, thereby saving the country the foreign exchange that would have been expended on rice importation.

    The officer said 15,000 tonnes of paddy rice were produced while 10,000 jobs were created during the period under review.

    ‘‘In Benue alone, more than 3,000 jobs were created and overall, 10,000 jobs have been created, comprising paid jobs of more than 7,000. ‘This laudable goal was achieved due to the political will of the participating state governments and this has gone a long way to boost rice and cassava production in the country,’’ he said.

    He stressed that aside supporting farmers, the programme had resulted in the construction of feeder roads to enable farmers to access their rice and cassava farms.

    He said the programme also constructed modern rice mills in states to enhance its quality.

    Odoemena said more attention was now being focused on meeting the food needs of the country as well as earning more foreign exchange from exports and to diversify the nation’s economy.

    Also speaking, Dr. Ameh Onoja, the National Coordinator, described the programme as a success story because it had empowered so many youths going by the assessment.

    He said 45,000 farmers in the six participating states of Anambra, Benue, Ebonyi, Niger, Ogun and Taraba had in the last three years embraced rice and cassava farming.

    Of that number, some of them engaged processing and marketing, to develop sustainable Value Chains for the two commodities.

    Onoja noted that in the last three years, the rice producing areas were producing over five tonnes of rice per hectare as against two two tonnes previously while cassava yield had hit an average of 20 tonnes per hectare as against the 10 tonnes recorded in the past.

    “It is indeed a success story as we have also constructed 130 kms of roads out of our target of 180 kms. We have also upgraded processing centres and farmers there are doing stone-free branded rice with better equipment and have increased the income of the processors,’’ he said.

  • IFC: Nigeria contributes to $42.6tr emerging market bank assets

    Global Progress Report on Sustainable Banking Network says Nigeria remains a major contributor to the $42.6 trillion bank assets by 34 emerging markets.

    The report released by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group, said the figure represented more than 85 per cent of the total bank assets in emerging markets in the world.

    It named Nigeria a major force in its support towards development and fights against climate change, in line with objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals.

    “Some of the 34 countries are wealthier than others, but all of them have made progress in advancing sustainable finance reforms. Eight countries include Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nigeria and Vietnam reached an advanced stage. “This is because they have implemented large-scale reforms and put in place systems for results measurement,’’ it stated.

    The report further mentioned that there were practical indicators for countries to apply such reforms to their own domestic markets, regardless of their size or stage of development.

    The IFC commended the endorsement of the Nigerian Sustainable Banking Principles by the Central Bank of Nigeria, to ensure a strong level of involvement from 34 national and international banks.

    The report suggested that to continue to advance in growth of sustainable finance, the country’s banking principles should integrate guidelines related to green financial flows and provide financial or non-financial incentives.

  • MTN contributes over N1tr to govts’ coffers, says CEO

    MTN contributes over N1tr to govts’ coffers, says CEO

    MTN Nigeria has contributed over N1trillion (about $7.1billion) to governments’ coffers since it commenced operation, its Managing Director/CEO, Michael Ikpoki, has said.

    Ikpoki, who spoke through the telco’s Corporate Services Executive, Akinwale Goodluck, yesterday in Lagos on Nigeria Telecoms Industry-Success Story of the Decade, said the payments covered duties on equipment amounting to N80billion, Value Added Tax (VAT) on revenue and operating expenses, equivalent of N221.4billion and N30.7billion respectively. He added that employee and withholding taxes of about N30.2billion and N191.1billion respectively have also been remiited to the government.

    Others include payments made to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) as Company Income Tax of N330.2billion, FIRS Education Tax of N40.40.8billion and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) Annual Operating Levies (AOL) of N109.8billion.

    Goodluck said despite the challenging operating environment, MTN Nigeria operations added about 9.3milion new entrants to its subscriber base. This brings the total number of subscribers to 56.7million, representing about 50 per cent of the Nigerian market, as against 200million globally. Revenue also grew by over five per cent from its 2012 level of N753.6billion.

    He said Year-on-Year, the firm’s tax payment went up by almost 12 per cent from the 2012 figure of N82.7billion, while cost of sales, comprising dealer commission, interconnect rates, AOL and others stood at N51billion, N60billion, N18billion and N29billion respectively, while Profit After Tax fell by about three per cent.

    Globally however, the telcos revenue dipped by 23 per cent following a 40 per cent reduction in mobile termination rates at the onset of the year.

    He said internet penetration is still low in the country at 71 per cent, compared to South Africa where it stands at 141 per cent

    Goodluck decried high operating cost in the country, saying fuel cost alone took 12 per cent, or about $1.4billion spend on network Year-on Year of the telco’s revenue, saying the money is enough to add 5,200 base transmission stations (BTS) to its network across the country. He said of the about 11,000 BTS operated by MTN, only between 30- and 50 per cent are connected to the national grid, while the others are powered by diesel. He said even the BTS hooked onto the national grid do not enjoy power supply beyond four hours at any given day, making Nigeria the only country in the world that has the largest network run on diesel.

    Goodluck warned that the telecom sector is in dire strait, saying that if nothing is done, it would impact negatively on funding to grow the industry to the next phase adding that it will lower investments in new areas such as broadband deployment.