Mazi Unegbu, the Managing Director, Maxifund Investment and Securities Limited, says the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan of the Federal Government is a step in the right direction.
Unegbu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday that no plan could be a perfect document but the fact that Nigeria had it was indication of better things to come.
He said it would be a good thing for whoever that would succeed the present administration to continue with the plan.
NAN reports that the Federal Government recently unveiled the ERGP, which contained the road map for Nigeria’s economic development.
The four-year plan (2017-2020) envisages that by 2020, “Nigeria would have made significant progress towards achieving structural economic change with a more diversified and inclusive economy.’’
According to the plan, real GDP will grow by 4.6 per cent in average over the plan period while inflation rate will move to single digit by 2020.
The plan outlines initiatives such as boosting oil production to 2.5 million barrels per day by 2020, privatising select public enterprises/assets and revamping local refineries to reduce petroleum product imports by 60 per cent by 2018.
Hesaid if the plan was implementated, unemployment would reduce from 13.9 per cent in the third quarter of 2016 to 11.23 per cent by 2020
Reacting to the continued increade in prices of goods and services in spite of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Forex intervention, he said people should be patient.
Unegbu said that the CBN intervention in the foreign exchange market would have a positive impact but not in the immediate term.
“People must realise that there are leads and lags in economic planning such that actions taken today will not result in the expectations for which the action was taken immediately,’’ Unegbu said.
He said that in the case of the intervention by CBN, the users of the Forex had not brought in the raw materials yet for maximum capacity utilisation.
“The action will not immediately impact on the prices of goods in the market so we should have patient for the policy actions to mature.
“You don’t cut the green grass and expect it to dry immediately. It will take some time to dry,’’ Unegbu said.
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