Economic crisis: Expert advises FG to revive agriculture, manufacturing sectors

An Economist, Mr Aro Rasaq, has advised the Federal Government to revive the agriculture and manufacturing sectors so as to increase productivity and address national economic crisis.
Rasaq, who is also the Managing Director of Nigerian Infrastructural Bank, gave the advice in an interview with journalists on Wednesday in Abuja.
The expert said that the first thing for the country to do to come out of the economic crisis was to increase its productivity.
“The country needs to increase the quantum of produce that it sends abroad so that its receipt of export can go up.
“It is very simple but to make it happen is not that easy, we have relied on oil sector for so long.
“Ninety per cent of our revenue for several years is from oil and we have not been exporting enough to diversify the economy for some years now.
“We had used the proceeds from agriculture, manufacturing to boost the economy in the past; so we should go back to what we were doing before,’’ he said.
Rasaq underscored the need for government to revive those sectors and resuscitate moribund factories to boost export.
“We need to develop those sectors even if we are not selling our manufacturing products to Europe, we can sell to Africa and West Africa.
“We are not selling to them because we are not even producing anything; many of our factories are dead and if they are dead, they cannot produce.
“If they are not producing, they cannot export and if we don’t export, we cannot get money.
“Even our agricultural produce we used to export – cocoa, groundnut and a number of things now have stopped, causing our export to dwindle.
“Those are the things we need to do to boost the economy,’’ he said.
The expert, however, said it would take a while for the country to fix those sectors.
He said, for example, it would take an average of four years for the country to increase the total output of cocoa for export.
“It is not what you do today and get result tomorrow but we have to start one day.
“We have to get our manufacturing factories to start working, we have to fix electricity and develop other sectors of the economy.’’
Besides, Rasaq advised the government to encourage farmers to increase cultivation of rice and also practice irrigation farming.
The expert added that such effort would make the country meet its local demand.
“We cannot continue to import rice because the more we import, the more we deplete our own foreign reserve and increase economic activities in those countries,’’ he said. (NAN)