New Telegraph

AfCFTA: FG to support states on Ease of Doing Business

Taiwo Hassan

 

Ahead the World Bank report on Nigeria’s Ease of Doing Business (EODB) expected to be released in 2022; the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has said that the Federal Government would support State Governments in their efforts to develop their respective reform action plans.

 

The Special Adviser to the President on Ease of Doing Business, Dr. Jumoke Oduwole, made this known at a recent Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Roundtable on Ease of Doing Business in Nigeria: Role of States.

 

Delivering her goodwill message at the event in Lagos, Oduwole said this was to provide an important push for government support for Nigerian businesses to gain more competitiveness as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) sets to define the flow in trade and business on the African continent.

 

She said as part of efforts to deepen the business climate reforms across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) Subnational Baseline Survey was undertaken by the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) as a status report on the current attractiveness of states business climates for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

 

She said: “The report launched at the NEC meeting of March 18, 2021, captures the different business environment realities across the country solely as perceived by a random sample of SMEs, with shared success stories of SMEs from all regions to encourage peer learning and review, healthy competition and provide guidance for investors.

 

“The empirical field survey was conducted by KPMG Professional Services between November 2020 and January 2021 and the report is based on empirical data and feedback from a cross-section of 998 SMEs across the 36 states and the FCT.”

 

She further disclosed that the sub-national survey methodology framework was developed by the PEBEC-NEC (National Economic Council) Technical Working Group comprising representation from six states embodying the six geopolitical zones, the NEC Secretariat, Nigerian Governor’s Forum, the National Bureau of Statistics, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council, the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, and other private sector representatives.

 

Dr. Oduwole added that the homegrown indicators the states were surveyed on are: Infrastructure & Security; Transparency & Access to Information; Regulatory Environment and Skills & Workforce Readiness.

 

She stated that each state was rated on a tenpoint scale across the four indicators, which provided the basis for calculating the overall performance of the states.

 

She however, notes that the survey result shows that no single Nigerian state dominates all indicators and suggests that most states have areas to showcase as well as areas for improvement, thereby enriching the peerlearning process.

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