Nigeria's Economy Is Growing —ICRC

The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) says in spite of problems and poor infrastructure in the country, the nation’s economy has grown considerably.

ICRC Director-General, Alhaji Mansur Ahmed, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Sunday in Abuja, that the nation’s

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at 7 percent, was a positive indicator to the growth.

“I think it is fair to say that the Nigerian economy, in spite of all its problems and hurdles of poor infrastructure and so on, has still continued to grow positively.

“The growth of the economy measured by GDP in this quarter and for the rest of this year is in the region of 7 percent and this is high.

According to him, this is high compared to the average growth of the most successful economies.

“The economy is doing well and the growth unfortunately has not translated into real development and improved quality of life of the people.”

He said the effort of government to expand the real sector of the economy was a step in the right direction.

“We must make this growth meaningful to the people. That is why the government is doing a lot to improve agriculture,” he said.

He added that the idea of the Central Bank of Nigeria providing huge amount of money to revive the industries, especially the textile sector, would help create employment.

“If we can revive our industry, we can reduce the level of unemployment by a significant proportion and we can do it in other sectors.

“Generating employment through the revival of industry and agriculture has been a major success of this administration,” he noted.

He commended the effort of the government to improve power generation, saying the sector was critical to industrial growth.

“In fact, the areas where government can rapidly improve people’s lives are to help small industries and businesses by ensuring adequate electricity.

According to him, this is so because most commercial activities depend on electricity.

“The hair dresser, welder, painter and every small business; if it has the infrastructure it requires, can increase its activities and generate more revenue and create more employment.