Save Nigeria from recession, NACCIMA tells FG
By Charles Okonji
The Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), has called on the Federal Government to formulate and implement policies that are capable of saving the country from sleeping into economic recession.
The National President of NACCIMA, Ide John Udeagbala made this call during the Association’s Third Quarter Briefing on the state of the economy in Lagos.
Udeagbala reggreted that the second quarter of 2022 experienced distortion in supply and value chain disruptions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“We, therefore once again, urge policy makers to take urgent action to avoid economic recession,” he stressed.
Pointing out that the country’s GDP has been on decline consistently, he said, “According to the report on national output from the National Bureau of Statistics, the Nigerian economy grew by 3.11 percent in the first quarter of 2022, a slight reduction from 3.98 percent in the fourth quarter 2021. As a matter of fact, GDP growth rate has been dropping on a quarter-by-quarter basis since the 5.01 percent growth recorded in the second quarter of 2021.
“While other stakeholders might see this as the leveling out of economic growth as part of the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the private sector is concerned that external shocks brought about by the Russia-Ukraine conflict has put immense pressure on the productive capacity of our economy.
“We therefore, urge once again,the implementation of government policy that places priority on improving domestic production otherwise, face a likely state of economic recession by the end of 2022.”
He stressed that inflation measured on a Year-on-Year basis, has grown from 17.17 percent as at May, 2022 to 18.6 percent as at June, 2022.
” As an economy, we have now surpassed the highest rate of inflation ever recorded of 18.17 percent in March 2021. While we welcome the decision of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank of Nigeria to raise the Monetary Policy Rate from 13 percent to 14 percent, we want to state that this is majorly an inflation management measure and does not address the root cause of the inflation itself, which is rising food prices brought about by a number of factors including the devaluation of the Naira and the cost of energy which has affected production and transportation.” NACCIMA President lamented.
