The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo has assured that by 2023, Nigeria would be ranked among the first 100 countries of the world in the area of ease of doing business.
Delivering a keynote address at the virtual Nigeria-Britain Trade and Investment Expo with the theme: “Unlocking the Future of Anglo-Nigerian Trade” on Thursday, the Minister noted that there is a correlation between ease of doing business and the economic prosperity of the country.
He said: “Given the strong correlation between the ease of doing business and economic prosperity, Nigeria believes in the value of proactive investment facilitation in encouraging domestic and foreign investments into the country”.
The consistent efforts of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) in collaborating with the relevant private and public sector institutions has resulted in the steady improvement in Nigeria’s position in the World Bank Ease of Doing Business ranking. “Nigeria has recorded improvements in its business environment, especially in the last 5 years, based on the World Bank’s assessment through its Doing Business Index. Nigeria’s ranking stood at 131 of 170 countries in 2020, up from 170 of 189 countries in 2016. We have also recorded improvements in the World Bank’s Sub-National Doing Business assessment.”
Furthermore, Nigeria is an active player in informal engagements at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD), an initiative that emphasizes increasing investments for sustainable development in developing countries through proactive investment facilitation.”We are optimistic that Nigeria will move further up and maintain a rate of improvement of 10 places per annum to become a top 100 contender in 2023,” he said.
The Minister said President Muhammadu Buhari was committed to improving the implementation of various trade facilitation programmes at all levels, pointing out that the National Trade Facilitation Committee (NTFC) is conferred with the mandate of resolving issues affecting trade facilitation at domestic and WTO level.
He added that his ministry was strategically focussing on the implementation of reforms and policies aimed at improving the ease of doing business to mitigate investors concern and accelerating additional inflow of investment and volumes of trade.
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