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• Okays Council on free trade zones
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the setting up of Presidential Council on industrial revitalization roadmap, to be chaired by President Bola Tinubu with 10 subcommittees.
Addressing State House Correspondents on the new council and its duties, the Industry, Trade and Investment, Doris Uzoka-Anite, said the subcommittee are to sit down and look at all the policies within different ministries, as well as the Ministry of Industry, trade and investment.
She said: “We have a lot of policies, frameworks and guidelines that should help to revitalize the industries within these different ministries and agencies. And we’re supposed to collaborate and come up with single roadmap for each of these subcommittees or each of these roadmaps. And that is actually geared towards developing the full industrial revival of the economy in line with the eight point agenda of Mr. President.
“At the end of this, we expect to see a boost in investment coming into the different industrial sectors.
We expect to see a boost in job creation and employment and a general increase in our indices, especially our GDP growth rates, which were said to be growing from 3.5% hopefully to 7%. And the GDP base of about 1 trillion which is in line with Mr. President’s vision.
“It is actually because of how to actualize this that we came up with a roadmap to stimulate industrial growth, especially catalyzing SME growth and in the whole industrial sectors.”
She subcommittees to include”Subcommittee on consumer credit, Subcommittee on commodity exchange, Subcommittee on
heavy industries and steel development, and Subcommittee on trade facilitation and ease of doing business.
Others are Subcommittee on licensing and certification of artisans, Subcommittee on trade facilitation and realization, Subcommittee on mining and solid minerals, Subcommittee on oil and gas and Subcommittee on Creative Industries.”
She said the subcommittees on defence, industries and pharmaceutical were stepped down.
The minister said the council also approved the setup of the committee to review the Free Trade Zone setup.
She said the committee is to “look at the setup, look at incentives, look at the laws and the reforms and come up with reforms that will help to stimulate and catalyze the economic benefits of the free trade zones and special economic zones.”
