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  • UNCTAD urges action on rising public debt

    UNCTAD urges action on rising public debt

    United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has called for urgent reforms to the global debt architecture to avert a widespread debt crisis among developing countries.

    In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, developing countries’ external sovereign debt – funds borrowed in foreign currency – increased by 15.7per cent to $11.4 trillion by the end of 2022. The mounting debt levels are further complicated by the diversity of lenders and financial instruments.

    Equally alarming is the surge in debt servicing costs. Low-income and lower-middle-income countries – also referred to as frontier markets – that borrowed when interest rates were low and investors keen are now spending around 23 per cent and 13per cent of their export revenues, respectively, to repay their external debt.

    To put this in perspective, after World War II, the share of export revenue going into debt servicing for Germany was capped at five per cent to aid West Germany’s recovery,” Head of UNCTAD’s Macro-economic and Development Policies Branch, Ms Anastasia Nesvetailova, said.

    The rising debt costs are draining vital public resources needed for development. About 3.3 billion people – almost half of humanity – now live in countries that spend more money paying interest on their debts than on education or health. The UN’s “A World of Debt Dashboard” provides data and in-depth insight on key public debt and development spending indicators for 188 countries.

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    “This situation is clearly unsustainable. While a systemic debt crisis, in which a growing number of developing countries move from distress to default, looms on the horizon, a development crisis is already underway,” she said.

    Ms. Nesvetailova said the mounting debt crisis stems not only from the wave of debt after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, the cascading crises since the pandemic and the aggressive monetary tightening in developed countries. She points out that the main roots lie in the structural flaws of the global sovereign debt architecture, “which offers inadequate and delayed support to countries in debt distress.”

    UNCTAD’s latest Trade and Development Report unpacks the current inequalities, inflexibilities and problems of the global sovereign debt architecture, outlining a strategy to address them.

    “A development-centred approach to debt is needed,” Ms. Nesvetailova says, highlighting overlooked factors contributing to unsustainable sovereign debt, such as climate change.

    The report advocates for a thorough re-evaluation of these factors, which encompass demographics, public health, global economic shifts, rising interest rates, geopolitical realignments, political instability, as well as the implications of sovereign debt on industrial policies in debtor states.

    It proposes a five-stage life cycle for sovereign debt as a conceptual framework to analyse and improve the global debt architecture. The stages include incurring debt, issuing debt instruments, such as bonds and loans, managing debt, tracking debt sustainability and, if necessary, restructuring or renegotiating the terms of debt.

    “We’re urging new creative thinking in all stages of the debt cycle, as well as new approaches to bridge the persistent divide between statutory and contractual solutions,” says Penelope Hawkins, head of UNCTAD’s debt and development finance branch.

    The UNCTAD report outlines a comprehensive set of recommendations to recalibrate the global debt architecture in line with developing countries’ needs.

    A key recommendation is to boost concessional loans – characterized by lower interest rates and longer repayment terms – and grants. This could be done by increasing the base capital of multilateral and regional banks to expand their lending capacity. Another way to raise concessional finance involves issuing special drawing rights (SDRs), a type of international currency the IMF created for member countries to boost their monetary reserves by exchanging them for official currencies as needed.

  • UNCTAD: Rules of origin ’ll enhance intra-African trade

    Rules of Origin (RoO) could be a game changer for Africa and enable the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to catalyse the continent’s regional integration by generating significant gains.

    The United Nations’ Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) made this known in its “Economic Development in Africa Report 2019.”

    RoO is a “passport” enabling goods to circulate duty-free within a free trade area, if those goods qualify as originating within the area.

    They are, therefore, one of the cornerstones for boosting trade on the continent, according to UNCTAD.

    The UN’s agency in the report estimated that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of most African countries could increase by up to three per cent once all tariffs are eliminated, if RoO is made simple and business-friendly.

    Read Also: Beyond the glitz and glamour of AfCFTA

    The 2019 Ibrahim Forum Report highlighted that Africa’s most urgent challenge was the fact that its massive youth bulge has mostly been devoid of prospects.

    About 60 per cent of Africa’s population is currently under 25 years old, and the continent’s youth will account for twice Europe’s  population in 2100.

    However, demographic and economic trends are not in tune. While important economic growth of the last decade has mainly been jobless, Africa’s youths consider unemployment by far the most pressing challenge for their governments to address.

    Besides hindering the potential of Africa’s biggest resource, its human capital and lack of economic opportunity are also key driver of African migrations, which are mainly composed of young and educated people.

    In some cases, the absence of prospects can also influence young people to join extremist groups. These urgent challenges can only be addressed by African countries, and the AfCFTA is an important step towards this.

    The AfCFTA is a trade agreement among African Union (AU) member states, aiming at creating a single continental market for goods and services as well as a union of customs with free movement of capital and persons.

  • Global exports to hit $19.6 trillion, says UNCTAD

    Global merchandise exports could grow by 10.4 per cent  this year, hitting almost $19.6 trillion, data published in the 2018 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Handbook of Statistics, has shown.

    A statement from the organisation said the figures are the result of “nowcasts” based on merchandise and services trade trends which reconnect with substantial growth last year, when global merchandise trade increased by 10 per cent, after two years of decline, and trade in services grew by 9.5 per cent.

    The Handbook underlines that factors contributing to the surge in the value of world trade in 2017 and 2018 are linked to an upswing of global GDP growth (3.1 per cent ), combined with increasing commodity prices (+17.7 per cent), especially for fuels (+26.1 per cent) and minerals, ores and metals (+12.2 per cent), as shown by UNCTAD’s constantly-updated . It highlights the fact that trade imbalances between developed and developing economies have been decreasing over recent years.

    This surge was also evident in the strong growth in maritime transport indicators compiled by UNCTAD: growth in world seaborne trade (the volumes of goods loaded and unloaded on the world’s seaports) was 4 per cent in 2017, and container port throughput (the volume of containers handled on ports) climbed by six per cent the same year.

    A detailed analysis of recent trends estimated by the nowcast models shows that merchandise trade and trade in services grew robustly during the first half of 2018, although there were significant indications of a slowdown in the second half of the year. A global economic cooldown and adjusted expectations due to recent protectionist trade measures can explain this reverse trend.

    For the publication, UNCTAD estimated nowcasting models for three variables: international merchandise trade, international trade in services and global GDP. This innovation responds to an increased demand for up-to-date information to monitor global international trade, study the impact of economic or political developments, and guide policy responses.

    “In an era of uncertainty, with swirling fears of trade wars, reliable statistical information is more indispensable than ever. It is a critical tool for informing policies and recommendations that may commit countries for many years as they strive to integrate into the world economy and improve the living standards of their populations,” said UNCTAD’s chief statistician, Steve MacFeely.

    Issued yearly since 1968, the UNCTAD’s Handbook of Statistics provides an overview of a broad spectrum of statistics relevant to international trade and economic development.

  • ‘What Nigeria ‘ll benefit from international cocoa agreement’

    President Muhammadu Buhari recently signed an international cocoa agreement. In this interview with GBENGA ADERANTI, Oba Dokun Thompson, a stakeholder in international chocolate production and the traditional ruler of Eti-Oni, whose domain produces cocoa, talks about how the agreement is going to affect Nigeria. Excerpts:

    How is the International Cocoa Agreement going to affect cocoa business and cocoa farmers in Nigeria?

    The recently signed International Cocoa Agreement by President Buhari was agreed at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UNCTAD, that was held in Geneva in 2010.

    It was the United Nations conference on cocoa and the main objectives of the agreement were to actually develop the world cocoa business or economy with particular focus on small holder cocoa farmers and to alleviate poverty which is very important not only for Nigeria but every cocoa producing country in the world.

    This is the 7th of such agreements and the first one was in 1972 when the International Cocoa Organization, ICCO, was established and the previous one in 2001 before this current one. What I am not sure of is when another agreement will be considered because this 2010 Agreement was drawn up in line with the UN 2015 Millennium Development Goals, MDGs. Now we have the UN 2030 SDGs.

    Though this agreement lays some emphasis on sustainability, I believe the scope may need to be expanded further to address some other areas that were not fully catered for in the UN 2015 MDGs and are now in the UN 2030 SDGs.

    On the part of the federal government, I cannot say why it took this long before the signature and why it was eventually signed but I have been advocating for the renaissance of the Nigerian cocoa industry for about three years now and perhaps that is what informed the signature and just like every agreement with all parties involved having certain obligations.

    I hope this will not just be one of a signature but also one that would be executed with every sense of duty and responsibility that comes with agreeing to be bound by the terms of any agreement.

    Would it not pose threat to firms in Nigeria using cocoa in their production?

    Not at all, it should in actual fact enhance their businesses but it all depends on their models and how the government works out the terms of the agreements for our benefit. There are two categories of membership or parties to the agreement, the exporters and importers.

    At the moment, Nigeria is an exporting country and the greatest challenge we have as a country where cocoa is concerned is really not with the International Cocoa Agreement (ICA) but with ourselves. For us at Eti-Oni Development Group, we are only just really understudying the industry in a manner to not only add but also create value and until we achieve this as a country, we would continue to lag behind.

    Beyond categorising us as exporters, we are also classified as bulk purchase cocoa producers while only Sao Tome & Principe and Madagascar are the only countries in Africa labelled with producing exclusively or partially fine or flavour cocoa and I don’t completely agree with that which leaves us with a lot of work to do.

    As part of our cocoa reconnaissance advocacy, we are working on redefining the industry to give it the true label or identity and not just accepting it as currently designated without working towards a complete audit or analysis of what we actually produce and I am sure we will get there soon.

    How possible is it for Nigeria to abide ‘faithfully’ as promised by the president?

    It is very possible for Nigeria to abide by the terms of the agreement and to also play our part diligently and when the President used the word ‘faithfully’, I want to believe that puts our interests first and ahead of any other. Our number one responsibility to the country is first for our well-being while developing both economically and socially.

    Our obligations to the agreement is to build our local and national capacity in terms of the standard, quality and output of beans produced with consideration for the environment and employment of good ethical practices that are transparent and will also improve the living standards and conditions of the farmers to create sustainability.

    That is the duty to ourselves and that is how we can positively contribute our own quota to aggregate those attributes with others to achieve the global objectives.

    Government also promised to support cocoa farmers, but with an ailing economy, how possible is this?

    The main solution to an ailing economy like ours is diversification and moving up the value chain and like I have always said, our economy had always been diversified.

    Apart from oil, we had always been involved in agriculture and others in the past but we have not moved along the value chain. We have crude but don’t have capacity to refine, we have cocoa but don’t have capacity to process, the refineries and processing plants in place are crying because of several problems inflicted by bad business judgments in some cases but most cases are as a result of bad government policies that actually kill these industries.

    The issue of multiple taxation by different government agencies going in and out of industries demanding payments for same permits called by different names which more or less fleeces them does nothing but destroys businesses. It is not even always when you provide loans that businesses thrive.

    When these measures that strangulate manufacturing and businesses are removed, it is another way of giving businesses money or a lifeline to survive and thrive. The environment is too regulated and constrained and the government needs to make a bold move to break the noose put around the necks of businesses and promote free trade in a well-structured deregulated environment that will make these businesses thrive.

    Even if these loans are given and the environment and conditions are not conducive, they will choke in no time and this is the situation not just with cocoa but all the other agriculture products and those in the manufacturing sector.

    With the current development, will your partners come to Nigeria to site a chocolate factory in Nigeria?

    Very interesting question because most see what we are doing as simply just to site a chocolate factory or produce cocoa but that is not the case for us.

    At Eti-Oni, cocoa and chocolate are part of our heritage and we will not separate them. Our model is such that we are working on creating a cocoa culture and part of it is through the annual cocoa festival celebration and the 2018 edition comes up between 2nd and 9th December 2018 at Eti-Oni in Atakumosa East LGA of Osun State where we will be celebrating 122 years of continued production of cocoa with the theme: Royal Origins and Traditions of Cocoa for Sustainable Transformation.

    We are also organizing some events in the UK in conjunction with ‘Friends of Eti-Oni’ as part of the strategy to create the global awareness and identity. On the 21st of October, 2018 we are having an afternoon of Tasting and Pairings of our Eti-Oni Signature dishes which are a set of recipes that were created to balance a complexity of flavours to tantalize the palate with African, Caribbean and European influence and infused with cocoa or interlaced with chocolate and this is being hosted by Jon Ganna, a prince of Koton Karfe, Kogi State and a Fellow of the Guild of Master Chefs at Huntingdon, UK and the annual Royal Cocoa Festival Dinner comes up on the 24th of October, 2018 in London.

    The intention is to create a fully integrated structure that will see production, processing and consumption increase and with it transform the rural community of Eti-Oni into a sustainable model smart town in line with the UN 2030 SDGs which is actually what the ICA is all about because that is what will achieve the main objectives of the agreement.

    So it is not just about a partner or a chocolate factory but several partners in a multifaceted arrangement that would also employ technology for ease of deployment as well as replicating and multiplying our solutions for provision of physical infrastructure and social services rapidly for the benefit of the people.

     

  • UNCTAD appoints Moghalu to expert group

    UNCTAD appoints Moghalu to expert group

    The Governing Board of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development ( UNCTAD ), the Trade and Development Board, has appointed Prof. Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, former Central Bank of Nigeria Deputy Governor and the President of Sogato Strategies LLC as a member of the Intergovernmental Expert Group on Financing for Development (IGEG FfD).

    The first session of the IGEG FfD will take place from 8-10 November 2017 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. It will discuss two topics and “guiding questions”: What can be done to enhance the mobilization of domestic public resources for development in developing countries?” and “How can international cooperation maximize its contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals?” The expert group will produce agreed policy recommendations on these issues for consideration by UNCTAD’s Trade and Development Board.

    In its letter appointing Prof. Moghalu to membership of the Intergovernmental Expert Group, UNCTAD said: “In view of your outstanding expertise in the area of financial sector regulation and reform, your views on a wide range of the many pressing issues in regard to improved mechanisms and international frameworks for the effective, stable and inclusive provision of development finance, and your longstanding experience with analytical and policy-making challenges in this area, will make an invaluable contribution to the important work of this expert group, and help maximise its impact and relevance”.

    UNCTAD is a permanent intergovernmental body established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1964. With headquarters located in Geneva, Switzerland, UNCTAD’s mission is to help developing countries access the benefits of a more globalized economy more fairly and effectively, including helping such countries deal with the potential drawbacks of greater economic integration. UNCTAD’s work helps countries diversify economies to make them less dependent on commodities, attract investment and make it more development friendly, promote entrepreneurship and innovation, and help local firms move up value chains.

  • UNCTAD report scores Nigeria low in tourism

    Tourism performed poorly in Nigeria compared to other African countries in 2015. This is based on a report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released last Wednesday.

    The report shows that overall there is a steady increase in number in intra-continental travel among Africans, with travel among Africans accounting for about 60 per cent of the tourists traffic in Africa.

    Nigeria was among the countries that did poorly with the tourist arrival of 1.2m tourists. This is poor compared to countries like South Africa with about 9 million visitors for the period under review.

    Based on the report, four out of 10 international tourist arrivals in Africa come from Africa. In the report titled  ‘Economic Development in Africa Report in 2017: Tourism for Transformation and Inclusive Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa’, this number increases to two out of every three tourists whose travels originate on the continent.

    Data backing this finding  show that contrary to perception, Africans themselves are increasingly driving tourism demand in Africa.

    The report says: “Tourisam in Africa is a flourishing industry that supports more than 21 million jobs or 1 in 14 jobs on the continent. Over the last two decades, Africa has recorded robust growth, with international tourist arrivals and tourism revenue growing at six per cent and 9 per cent respectively  each year between 1995 and 2014.”

    The report encourages African countries to harness the dynamism of tourism sector.

    In order to improve on this figures, the report says : “To realize the potential of intra-regional tourism for the continent’s economic growth, African governments should take steps to liberalize air transport, promote the free movement of persons, ensure currency convertibility and crucially, recognize the value of African tourism and plan for it.

    “ These strategic measures can have relatively fast tangible impacts. In Rwanda, the abolition of visa requirements for fellow members of the East African Community in 2011 helped increase intra-regional tourists from 282,000 in 2010 to 478,000 in 2013”.

    Another important theme highlighted in the report was the mutually beneficial relationship between peace and tourism. The mere appearance of instability in a region can deter tourists, leading to devastating, long –lasting economic  consequences. However, the perception of danger does not always correspond to reality.

    At the unveiling  of the report, Professor Ifeanyi Nwokoma of the Department of Economics, University of Lagos, noted that part of the reasons Nigeria performed poorly compared to other countries was that the nation so much relies on oil revenue, while neglecting other important sectors like tourism that add so much to the economy of the country.

    Making a remark during the launch, the  Director, United Nations Information Office said in Nigeria, promoting tourism was consistent with the efforts of the government to diversify the economy.

    He said further: “The report shows that West Africa ranks very low as a tourist destination with just about five million visitors in 2015 compared to 10 million who visited Eastern Africa.

    “Nigeria still ranked low with mere 1.2 million visitors in 2015 compared to nine million for South Africa and 10 million for Morocco in the same year. There is, therefore, a lot of untapped opportunities in the tourism industry in Nigeria”.

    The President, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mrs. Nike Akande Akande commended UNCTAD for the report and said the LCCI was  committed to sensitizing the business community on the opportunities in the hospitality and tourism sector.

  • Build continent-wide policy – UN conference tells Africa

    Build continent-wide policy – UN conference tells Africa

    The Economic Development in Africa Report 2015 by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has said that better leveraging of services trade in Africa could yield major employment and growth benefits.

    The report subtitled “Unlocking the Potential of Africa’s Services Trade for Growth and Development” argued that the ongoing negotiations towards a continental free trade agreement offer a unique opportunity to align national and regional policies on services trade to that end.

    Officially launched in Lagos Nigeria, the report also argues that building continent-wide policy coherence in financial services would boost economic productivity and help reduce poverty.

    “Africa must bridge the policy disconnect of services trade in order to unlock the sector’s potential for the continent’s growth and economic transformation.

    “Furthermore, the impact of a continent-wide free trade area will only be meaningful for Africa if services are opened up in parallel with trade in goods. This is because services, such as transport and storage services, are necessary components of trade in goods,” UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said.

    According to the report, the establishment of a continental free trade agreement, most recently on the agenda at an African Union summit in June 2015, is in itself a unique opportunity for African countries to align their existing national, regional and global policies on services trade.

    It also found that many national development plans mention services trade as a vehicle for development but fail to link it to existing regional plans or regulation on services in the context of their regional economic communities.

    For example, several countries such as Burkina Faso have become leading exporters of cultural services, and Kenya and Senegal of business process outsourcing, but these sectors are not integrated with the countries’ commitments made at the World Trade Organization.

    Another major area identified by the report where African Governments need to make efforts in aligning the existing national, regional and multilateral regulatory frameworks, is in the financial services sector.

    The report argues, for example, that it is important for African countries to extensively examine how to align their domestic financial sector regulation with existing regional regulation, as some regional economic communities already have some protocols in place covering aspects of financial sector integration and/or investment at the regional level. This is the case of the Arab Maghreb Union, the East African Community, the Economic Community of West African States and the Southern African Development Community.

    These protocols envisage the free movement of capital in their respective subregions and will need to be adequately reflected in national policy and regulation so that financial market integration becomes a reality.

    At national level, the report recommends that services trade be adequately mainstreamed into national development plans. This requires that a policy formulation exercise be informed by country-wide consultations with all the major stakeholders.

    At regional level, the report notes that greater coherence could be achieved if a pan-African mechanism is established to allow for the continuous consultation and coordination of a regional agenda and concerns relating to services trade that arise within the regional economic communities and the African Union.

  • Nigeria’s many challenges attracting foreign direct investment

    Nigeria’s many challenges attracting foreign direct investment

    The Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment is at the heart of the overall government strategy to grow Nigeria’s economy. Bukola Afolabi analyses the ministry achievements in the last two years and the challenges ahead

    The United Nations Conference for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in its 11th June, 2012 Investment Framework Policy report stressed the importance of investments in the face of global economic realities.

    “At a time of persistent crises and pressing social and environmental challenges, harnessing economic growth for sustainable and inclusive development is more important than ever. Investment is a primary driver of such growth. Mobilizing it and ensuring that it contributes to sustainable development objectives is important for all countries, especially developing countries,” UNCTAD noted. Against this background, it said, a new generation of investment policies is emerging, pursuing a broader and more intricate development policy agenda, while building or maintaining a generally favourable investment climate’.

    In the last 22 months, one ministry that has done so much in the area of economic revitalisation, but whose job may not be easily seen mainly because it does not put up physical structures but creates the environment for good economic structures to stand, is the Ministry of Trade and Investment. That ministry was renamed at the beginning of this administration with so much ‘style’, owing more to the international experience of Olusegun Aganga, the man at the helm of affairs. But that singular action by President Goodluck Jonathan, is unfolding to be more than a mere name change.

    Barely two years after the expansion of the ministry’s mandate, local and international financial experts have continued to roll out positive trade and investment statements/figures on Nigeria. This, experts have said, is apparently the result of the work being done by the Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, working closely with his colleague, the Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Dr. Samuel Ortom.

    “The duo have been working hard to tackle the major challenges confronting Nigeria’s business environment, even though these efforts may not be immediately visible. But I can say that the significant and verifiable results that we have been seeing in the last six months are the direct results of these efforts,” an economist/financial analyst, Dr. Joel Yakubu, said.

    Yakubu adds that: “What we must do now is strategise to make the modest growth inclusive and to ensure that we continue with the ongoing reforms, at the same pace, even after the expiration of this administration’s tenure,” he noted.

    Apparently as a result of the aggressive investment drive under the new administration, reports from the Ministry of Trade and Investment state that investment commitments of over N8.5trillion have been generated so far while some of the major investors have actually commenced implementation. For instance, General Electric Company of the United States, which recently sealed a $1billion investment deal on the establishment of a new manufacturing and assembly facility in Calabar, said at the time, that the project was at the point of execution.

    Yakubu said, “Though it will take a while for the impact of these investments to be felt, it has been established that Nigeria has a renewed image even in the face of challenges. This, I believe, explains why Presidents and trade ministers from Europe, Latin America etc, have continued to visit Nigeria to explore mutually beneficial trade and investment relationships. It also goes to show that there has been some aggressive marketing of Nigeria’s potential, especially by a person they consider trusted in investment matters,” he said.

    However, The Nation’s findings show that confidence in the Nigerian economy is fast improving as evidenced by different global investment reports. Just recently, Nigeria was ranked as one of the four major investment destinations and growth areas in the world.

    According to KPMG, one of the world’s foremost audit, financial and tax advisory firms, Nigeria’s newfound status followed the disappointing returns recorded by the BRICS, with the exception of China.

    The World Investment Report 2012, subtitled “Towards a New Generation of Investment Policies”, released recently by UNCTAD in Geneva, also placed Nigeria as Africa’s biggest destination for Foreign Direct Investment in 2011, with total FDI inflows of $8.92bn. The report stated that Nigeria received $8.92bn in FDI, thereby placing it as first in Africa, while South Africa was ranked next with total FDI inflows of $5.81bn.

    Investment climate reform

    Going by reports of activities under the Ministry of Trade and Investment’s Investment Climate Reform Programme, a lot of efforts have gone into reforming the Nigerian investment climate and improving the country’s Doing Business ranking. The Doing Business and Competitiveness and Investor-Care committees have been revived; the One-Stop Investment Centre at the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) has been repositioned and strengthened to achieve efficient coordination of investment facilitation between relevant government agencies and achieve a 48-hour response target for all enquiries, while the board of the National Competitiveness Council of Nigeria was recently inaugurated to drive healthy competition in business.

    These efforts have, no doubt, yielded measurable gains. For instance, the Global Benchmarking Network ranked Nigeria 115th in its annual Global Competitiveness Reports released in September last year. The country was ranked 127th the previous year, indicating an improvement by 12 points.

    The report, published on the website of the World Economic Forum on September 5, identifies and assesses the drivers of the economy of 144 countries and is reputed to be one of the most comprehensive ratings of national competitiveness worldwide. According to the report, Nigeria moved up to the 115th place in the ranking due to improved macroeconomic condition.

    Regulations of the Corporate Affairs Commission, a parastatal under the supervision of the Ministry of Trade and Investment, has also been amended paving the way for N1billion potential annual savings to investors. This, according to the Registrar-General, CAC, Alhaji Mahmud Bello, is in addition to the redevelopment of CAC software systems to enable online registration of businesses. He said potential annual savings to investors in this regard was estimated at N2.5billion.

    “The Honourable Minister also made it clear to me that I had to deliver 24-hour registration service as a major KPI, and I am happy to say that we have been able to deliver that,” Mahmud said.

    In this regard, the total number of new companies registered within 24 hours since the commencement of the 24-hour start-to finish business registration by the CAC, currently stands at 10,723. This information was made public in the CAC’s latest Report titled, “Statistics of New Registration Services