Firstly, let me thank the organizers of this event for inviting me to make this input to the panel discussion. I am honored to be here today.
Nigeria, not only the largest economy in Africa, she has a population of about 200 million consumers, which offers huge and profitable opportunities, practically in all sectors, to European investors, seeking high returns on investment. In fact, Nigeria should be number 1 destination for foreign investors in Africa. The question is why is this not so?

To put things in the right perspectives, currently, there are about 7 billion humans on Earth, of which about 1.2 billion (17%) live on the African continent, but with an international trade share of less than 5%. Currently, Nigeria’s share of international trade is just a fraction of a percentage. In fact, while Global population growth rate peaked several decades ago and has been decreasing since then, Nigeria’s growth has continued to see annual acceleration. Moreover, according to UN projections, Nigeria will be adding more people to the world’s population by 2050 than any other country, in the world. Isn’t this the place to invest your money, given the growing consumers?

However, these figures are also alarming as they are calling for appropriate and adequate responses from Nigeria’s leaders, which are not forthcoming. One of such responses is creating an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive. Creating an enabling environment to help the private sector create employment opportunities for this increasing population is not only
becoming more urgent by the day but a task more important than ever. When we Economists talk of enabling environment for the private sector to
thrive, essentially, we are talking about the provision of both physical (hard) infrastructures, institutions (soft) and strategic human resources. Essentially the following are meant:

(i) The right working conditions (soft)
(ii) relevant mass transit and transportation infrastructures such as good networks of roads, railway and waterways connections (hard)
(iii) social and healthcare service delivery (hard and soft),
(iv) confidence building measures, such as functioning judiciary system (soft),
(v) quality education and training facilities (soft & hard)
(vi) fighting corruption (soft)
(vii) Security for life and property (soft)
(viii) Provision of sufficient energy/power (hard)
(ix) Retirement schemes (soft),
(x) Communication infrastructure, such as good internet connectivity infrastructures
(hard).
(xi) And of course access to affordable capital (soft).

Let me briefly elaborate on a few of the above items Access to Capital (soft) Nigeria’s capital markets have to be oriented towards its private sector needs and moved away from short-term equity investors that are driven by quick returns, which dictates interest rates to the disadvantage of the SMEs. Monetary policies should encourage commercial banks to provide affordable loans to SMEs, being amongst the major employer of the private sector. Nothing is as bad for a contracting economy as people looting the scarce resources meant for projects and then converting the money into foreign currencies and locking them away or transferring the money to buy properties abroad as this not only bring the ripple effects of money to a halt, but also leads to a further contraction of money supply in the economy. This has severe consequences for the economy. Innovativeness and technology (soft) Initiatives linked to adding value to endogenous resources should be prioritized and supported through tax incentives. This is because such endogenous resources linked initiatives are more likely to create sustainable jobs. Creating the right climate for start-ups, along with the provision of technical and administrative support, should be a part of the package. Education/Training (hard & soft) Nigeria is not sufficiently benefitting from the outsourcing fallouts of globalization, because of lack of well-trained work force. In Nigeria of today, there seems not what could be called a national education strategy, which clearly identifies the strategic goals the nation’s education strives to achieve that is backed by clear actions.

A national need based approach may better serve Nigeria. Steering more students into vocational or technical schools will generate more skilled workers that the private sector needs to thrive.Creating "lean" regulatory agencies (Soft) Too much bureaucracy slows down the pace of transactions, reduce productivity and efficiency. Business owners are too often confronted with redundant layers of red tapes that strangulate business initiatives. Keeping regulatory agencies lean and compelling them to streamline procedures, publish fees, firm deadlines for completing their work with a clear mandate to remove outdated and needless rules would be creating an enabling environment that promotes the private sector. Create a national jobs database (hard & soft) A national database enables policy makers to know of mismatch between the skills workers have and the skills that companies need at the labor market. Corruption (soft) Corruption is impeding the development of Nigeria, raising the cost of transactions, reducing productivity and efficiency, and harming the competiveness of the Nigerian private sector. Indeed, Nigeria’s form of corruption of looting the treasury and then transferring the loots abroad or converting them into foreign currencies and locking them away is like strangulating a people after robbing them. These actions cause the ripple effects of money that only occurs when in circulation to come to a halt. This widespread behavior is exacerbating the poverty level in Nigeria Attract tourists (soft) Tourism is big business across the world. It is becoming a major source of foreign currency earnings for many countries across the world.

What could Nigeria’s government do to help the hospitality sector in Nigeria? For instance;

1. Streamlining the visa process for tourists and aggressively promoting
travel to Nigeria.
2. Addressing the issue of security and safety
3. Identifying and refurbishing potential tourist attractions
4. Creating standards and improving on the skills and quality of employees
in the hospitality sector
5. Introducing mandatory standards for facilities in the sector

Lastly, Nigeria must lead and champion intra Africa’s trade. Africa needs a single market that takes her away from its current economic fragmentation in regional systems. Currently, Africa has five economic systems that are doing African no good:

 Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS)
 East African Community (EAC)
 Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS)
 Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)
 UMA (Union of Maghreb Arabs)

Recognizing the importance of Africa doing more business within the continent The African Economic Community Treaty (AEC and also known as the Abuja Treaty) was adopted by the African Union (AU) in 1991 and came into force on 12 May 1994. The objective of the treaty was to start a process of harmonization and progressive integration of the activities of existing and future regional economic communities (RECs) in Africa, with the ultimate goal of creating free trade areas, customs unions, a single market, a central bank, and a common currency thus establishing an economic and monetary union by 2028.

No doubt, an Africa with a functioning single market is in Nigeria’s interest as this will stimulate competition and trade, efficiency, raise quality and ultimately help cut prices. This is likely to facilitate economic growth and create employment opportunities for Nigerians and other Africans. If Nigeria is serious about economic growth and development, she must be at the forefront and be one of the drivers of all initiatives in this direction.

The trade and export promotion institutions and agencies in Nigeria should take a cue from Austria and become more pro-active in ascertaining that what needs be done are done at home, while aggressively networking with partners abroad.

Thank you.

Dr. Jones O. Edobor
Economist, lives in Vienna (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.