Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has called on policy implementers in all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as the private sector to focus on value addition to boost the nation’s economy.
The Vice-President said this at the 3rd-Year Ministerial Performance Review Retreat organised by the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) for Ministers, Permanent Secretaries and top government functionaries on Monday in Abuja.
Osinbajo stressed the need for focus on value addition and productivity to improve the economy and fasttrack development in the country.
“Focus must be on value addition and productivity in our economy.
“The ideas were well articulated in the Medium Term Economic Plan 2021-2025–the importance of loosening generalised restrictions on trade.
“Blanket import restrictions are a dampener on economic activity because a lot of items that might be needed in the manufacturing process might be affected with consequent negative impact on value addition in the economy.
“Importation itself is not the problem; it is what you import and what you do with it; it is value added that matters.
“This is how jobs and wealth are created; many countries of the world who manufacture are huge importers and they import far more than Nigeria.
“Let us take the example of garment manufacturing; Bangladesh the world’s leading garment manufacturer does not produce most of the cotton it uses; it only grows two per cent of its annual cotton requirement.
“In 2019, Bangladesh imported $11.8billion worth of textiles and apparels while it exported $37.94billion worth of garments in the same year.”
Osinbajo, therefore, urged the participants to find ways to add value to the economy to stimulate job creation and wealth generation for the citizens.
Earlier, while declaring the retreat open, President Muhammadu Buhari said that high-impact projects had been implemented across the country.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the 2-day retreat aims to provide an update on the status of policies, programmes and projects of government and map a trajectory of the delivery of this Administration’s priority agenda for 2019 to 2023.
