President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday said the present administration would continue in its efforts until the recorded improvement in the nation’s economic indexes translate to visible improvement in the life of all citizens.
Speaking at the launch of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) Focus Labs in Abuja, the President said government has achieved several noteworthy milestones in the past ten months.
“As you are aware, economic growth returned in second quarter of 2017 due to a clear follow-through of some of the economic initiatives we set out to implement. Since then, we have consolidated on the recovery path reaching a Real GDP growth of 1.92 per cent by the fourth quarter of 2017.
“We have also restored stability in foreign exchange market and have recorded improvements in our foreign reserves which have grown from 24 billion US dollars in September 2016 to 42 billion US dollars by mid-February 2018 and now 46 billion US dollars.
“This has been achieved partially because of the recovery of oil prices on the international market. We have made remarkable strides in creating a conducive business environment for investors, earning the World Bank’s ranking as one of the Top 10 most improved economies in 2017. This has encouraged both local and foreign investments in the last few months,’’ he said.
He said the federal government would continue to work in order to attract local and foreign investments so as to expand economic activities thereby creating additional jobs for the people.
He said government remained committed to working hard to attain its target of moving up in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings by 2020, stressing that billions of naira is being invested in fixing infrastructures across the country.
He said significant progress had been made in the agricultural sector with the expansion of the Anchor Borrower’s Programme to more beneficiaries to boost local production across the country.
“We plan to build upon the success of the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative to double the 500,000 metric tons of fertilizer delivered to States, agro-dealers and farmers in 2017, by achieving production output of 1 million metric tons in 2018,” he said.
