The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has said that establishing competitiveness in whatever Nigeria will put forward as a country will make it relevant in all the process contained in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The Director General, LCCI, Dr. Muda Yusuf stated this while delivering a paper at the 3rd Annual Lecture and Awards organized in Lagos last week by Primetime Reporters with the theme, “Assessing Nigeria’s Preparedness to Maximize the Gains of AfCFTA.”
Yusuf, while underscoring the importance of competitiveness in AfCFTA, averred that that is the very foundation of any conversation about trade because the man or woman at the other end, whether domestic or outside the country had no sentiment about it.
He argued that if what one is providing whether nationally or internationally is not competitive in price, quality, it is of no relevant because the consumer is not interested in whether it is made in Nigeria or not.
“What he is interested in is how he or she can maximize what we call utility in Economics, how he or she can maximize or benefit from the little money that he wants to spend. So, that is why the emphasis has to be on how we can make ourselves competitive”, he said.
He recalled that the manufacturing sector kicked against AfCFTA hence the reason Nigeria was one of the last to ratify the agreement because “they have looked at all the things around them and they said as far as production is concerned, there is no way they can compete and you can’t blame them because you are the investor, you have committed capital, you have imported machines, have had a lot of assets, many of them immovable and you put all these investments in place based on specific competitiveness assumptions.”
The Director General continued, “You have looked at the market, you have done some competitive analysis and said yes, this investment will fly. Now the assumptions have changed, the competition parameter is now changing; you are now facing new competitors. Meanwhile, the domestic environment has not changed, you tax environment has not changed, the port environment has not changed, the cost of funds, the regulations, the lending and all of that. The infrastructure issues are still there. So, it is a dangerous challenge.
“We have already ratified and so, hopefully and prayerfully, there will be no going back so that we don’t have the kind of thing we have in Brexit, after UK joined and said it is pulling out. I pray we are not going to get there because a whole lot of countries are much better prepared and it was because of this preparedness issue in 2018, the President set up a Readiness and Impact Assessment Committee when the manufacturers were complaining to know what exactly we need to ensure that we are better prepared, to ensure that our stakeholders and investors can be part of this system and also benefit from the continental market.
“The committee was set up to look at the readiness issues, the committee submitted its report on readiness issues around the ports, around the aviation, road, power and around all the problems that investors are facing. The report has been submitted, the situation has not changed, nothing is even happening, the situation even getting worse.”
Photo: Director General, LCCI, Dr. Muda Yusuf.
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