President Goodluck Jonathan, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, and her Finance counterpart, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, will next week join other stakeholders to discuss the reform of the country’s economy at The Economist’s Nigeria Summit 2013.
The President and his ministers are among the keynote speakers lined up for the two-day summit, aimed at examining what policy makers are doing to implement significant structural reforms in various sectors of the economy.
Jonathan will outline his strategy for tackling terrorism and his outlook for Nigeria in the next decade, while Alison-Madueke is expected to speak on the impact of the Petroleum Industry Bill and the future of the country’s petroleum industry.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, will present an overview of the Nigeria’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda that seeks to treat agriculture as a business.
International journalist and Managing Director, Mark Eddo Media, Mr. Mark Eddo, said at a press briefing on Tuesday that the organisers decided to bring the event to Lagos instead of Abuja, which had hitherto hosted it because Lagos was the commercial nerve centre of the country.
According to Eddo, the conference is about bringing key players in the Nigerian economy together for a rare interactive session.
He said, “Nigeria has a young and growing population, a wide range of natural resources and a government full of internationally renowned reformers – yet life for the average Nigerian is not improving. There’s no shortage of visions that see Nigeria transformed into a dynamic, competitive economy where entrepreneurialism and innovation thrive. But the real need is for action at all levels.
“The Economist’s Nigeria Summit 2013 will focus on what is being done to execute this vision. We’ll take a critical look at what policy-makers are doing to implement significant structural reforms in areas from education to agriculture and logistics, and where they are falling down; we’ll examine best-practice experience elsewhere and we’ll explore in detail what other players can do to enable change.”
Eddo said the conference would also provide an avenue for an overview of Africa’s economic future, adding that the Economist Intelligence Unit’s leading forecaster would provide an overview of the global macro-economic picture, talking through the growth prospects for Nigeria, Africa and its major trading partners, and identifying scenarios and risks, which investors should prepare for.
The summit, according to him, will also feature former President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking a closer business synergy between his country and sub-Saharan Africa through Nigeria.
