The Federal Government has saved up to N3.28 trillion from reduction of importation in the last three Years, the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, has said.
The minister made this known on Tuesday at the virtual Economic Summit 2020 organised by WorldStage.
Onu stated that the government realised ₦613.61 billion, ₦412.83 billion and ₦2.3Trillion in savings from reduction in imports in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively.
According to him, the Federal Government can realise a lot if efforts are made on home grown products through research and development.
The minister, who spoke on the summit’s theme “New Reality: Consolidating Economic Diversification”, said domestication of the current reality of COVID-19 Pandemic for Nigeria requires orderly and well-coordinated efforts by all stakeholders including governments at all levels.
“The socio-economic reality facing Nigeria could be adequately premised on current world economic reality occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic.
“The world economic outlook in 2020 affects key macro-economic imperative of all nations to the extent that human migration. Trade in goods and services within country and external; relations in production and services; strategic multi-lateral and bi-lateral activities and; internal and external threats to security and defence, were all in the negative trajectory.
“Capacity to implement well crafted budgets and development plans were distorted resulting in the worst incidence of astronomic negative indices of employment generation, depreciation in disposal income; closure of key corporate bodies and suspension of major capital formation projects,” he remarked.
He explained that President Mohammed Buhari had addressed the recession occasioned by very sharp drop in the world oil prices in 2015 and 2016 through its fiscal and monetary policies.
“This 2019 achievement was derived from the first quarter to fourth quarter positive growth respectively at 2.1% (Q1), 2.12% (Q2), 2.28% (Q3) and 2.55% in Q4. However, by 2020 (Q1) the real growth rate dropped to 1.87% and relapsed into a contraction of -6.1% by the Q2.
“In summary, the current reality of the nation’s economy as depicted by the structure of the growth rates and relative sector contribution to GDP provides interesting but mixed challenges to policy design, programme development and projects/activities,” he said.
The minister noted that the current structure of the economy shows that Nigeria’s economy could be successfully diversified during post-COVID-19 with less emphasis on oil.
“The most instructive new normal is the contribution of crop production at double digit level of 21.97% in 2020Q2 and 22.67 overall 2019. Similarly at double-digit contribution at 14.3% in 2020 Q1 from 10.30 overall 2019 contribution in real terms in 2019 GDP. Before the recession in 2016 and the current situation influenced by COVID-19 Pandemic, our economy was heavily dependent on Agriculture, Oil and Distributive trade.
“This current reality is a clear confirmation of my earlier strategic approach to leverage the Nigeria Science, Technology and Innovation ecosystem in restructuring the economy away from Commodity-based to knowledge driven economic development.
“As soon as I was appointed the Honourable Minister responsible for the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, I focused on Nigeria’s’ drive towards global competitiveness in identification, harnessing and utilization of our abundant human, raw materials and products development in Nigeria.
“Indeed by 2017, we secured the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval of both the National Strategy and its Implementation Plan. Indeed, the national strategy was designed to develop/enhance a robust STI and Humanities/Art ecosystem that is serviced with well focused and targeted industry and services demand-driven R&D programmes, projects and activities.
“The main thrust of the strategy is to reduce Nigeria’s’ over-dependence on import, especially of items we are well endowed with ample comparative advantage to supply the world. This will save a huge foreign exchange especially in R&D activities which will eventually translate to high quality Made-in-Nigeria raw materials, products and services.
“Our desire and goal is to ensure establishment of strategic alliance between the knowledge domain (Universities, Polytechnics/Monotechnics and R&D Institutions) and our industries, businesses and the entrepreneurs. These alliances are designed to observe the need to establish a strong and resilient National Quality Infrastructure (NQI) with support from the pillars of Standardization, Conformity Assessment and Metrology. As the regulatory establishments conduct mandatory Conformity assessment with requisite tool boxes, they are compelled to maintain delicate balances between Societal and Business Concerns before issuance of credible certification and Accreditation.
“A functional institutional arrangement have been established to include constitution and inauguration of the National Consultative Committee on Competitiveness (NCCC) with ten (10) Standing Committees. In addition, a Strategy Implementation Task Unit (SITU) is established in the Federal Ministry of Science & Technology (FMST) and a Competitiveness Desk Office in our twenty MDAs.”
Comments are closed.