LCCI decries quality of business environment to real sector operators

Notwithstanding the economic performance of the country, the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has decried the quality of the business environment to investors, especially those in the real sector.

According to the chamber, weak infrastructure, uncertain policy environment, and institutions have continued to adversely affect the efficiency, productivity, and competitiveness of many enterprises in the economy, adding that these conditions pose a major risk to job creation and economic inclusion across sectors.

Director General of the Chamber, Dr. Chinyere Almona, in the chamber’s message to mark Nigeria’s 62nd Independence anniversary, stated that the nation is at a cross-roads and in dire need of big decisions to drive the drastic transformation the economy requires returning to economic prosperity.

Almona cited insecurity as another challenge facing the country, noting that the situation has since deteriorated in the last year and lately, assuming a very worrisome dimension.

This, she regretted, has impacted investment inflow and worsened the country’s perception and image by the global investing community.

“Access to markets in the troubled parts of the country has been reduced for many enterprises, with negative consequences for investors’ confidence. Agricultural production bases have been negatively impacted, leading to food scarcity and rising food inflation” Almona lamented.

On the real sector, LCCI DG stated: “Over the last few decades, the challenges of production in the economy have grown progressively largely because of the quality of infrastructure, which is why the risk of industrial investment is high and continues to increase.

“The various policy interventions have not had the desired impact on the sector. Unless there is effective and sustained protection and support for the sector, and a dramatic improvement in infrastructure, the outlook for the sector will remain gloomy, particularly for the small-scale industries. Most SMEs are constrained due to the rising cost of production.

“It is impossible to have a vibrant manufacturing sector in the face of cheap imports into the country and high production and operating cost in the domestic economy. Some of these imports are landing at 50 per cent of the cost of products produced locally.

“Besides, manufacturers have to worry about high energy costs; they have to worry about high-interest rates – 25 per cent and above; they have to worry about a multitude of regulatory agencies making different demands on them; they have to worry about massive smuggling and under-invoicing of imports, they worry about trade facilitation issues at the seaports and many more.”

“For most manufacturing SMEs, it is a nightmare. Yet production is critical to enduring economic and social stability”.

The way forward, LCCI declared, is to address the fundamental constraints to manufacturing competitiveness in the Nigerian economy, adding that in reality, job losses in the real sector have increased over the decades as productivity declined on the back of the difficult operating environment.

“Our nation, Nigeria, has come a long way and is too big to fail” the Chamber reasoned.