Nigerian News Service

Wednesday, 19 Jun 2013
27 July
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Nigeria needs $900b domestic product for Vision 2020

Nigeria needs to grow her Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to over $900 billion in order to be among the top 20 economies by the year 2020.

Minister of National Planning, Shamsudeen Usman, who stated this at an interactive session with media executives in Lagos yesterday, said current GDP figures of $194 billion places the country in the 41st position, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates.

Presenting the 2010 monitoring and evaluation report for federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) for 2010, the minister said despite huge potential, the country floundered in major sector targets. According to him, using Key Performance Indicators (KPI), only three sectors met the 2010 growth targets.

"Only the oil and gas, transportation, as well as wholesale and retail trade met the growth targets. Other critical sectors performed poorly, such as manufacturing, building and construction and utilities. The economy is still dominated by primary production with weak linkages and low value addition," Mr Usman said.

Minerals and metals, water resources, infrastructure, oil and gas sectors all fell short of target.

Restructure the economy

He said the goal of the Vision 20:2020 policy is to restructure the economy by diversifying its productivity base for greater domestic content and value. He, however, said the economy was on track towards meeting the set target.

"With the little we have done, the Nigerian economy has moved from 44th position in 2009 to 41st," he added.

By the target outlined in the Vision document, the manufacturing sector is expected to contribute about 7,5 per cent to the GDP but only achieved 4.16 per cent while capacity utilisation, which was projected at 52 per cent, could only return 47 per cent. Capacity utilisation stood at 73.3 per cent in 1984.

Mr Shamsudeen, who is also the vice chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC), said the commission had outlined medium term implementation plans that would enable it embark on proper growth target and evaluation.

According to the commission, about N35 trillion would be required to achieve the 2011 to 2015 medium term plan, funding for which will be provided by the federal, state, and local government as well as the private sector.

 

Tracking performance

"Government has directed tracking of performance of MDAs at the federal and state level, out of which 92 MDAs were evaluated. We must begin to imbibe international best practices," Mr Usman further said.

While acknowledging that there are weak linkages in the economy, which has prevented the modest growth in the economy to be reflected in the lives of the citizens, he said the country was on course to meet the growth targets.

The minister said government was keen to encourage more private sector participation in the economy while leakages in the system would be plugged in order to save funds for implementation of the growth projections.

 

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