The National Competitiveness Council of Nigeria (NCCN), has the government to pay more attention on competiveness in the country.
The Chief Executive Officer of the NCCN, Mr. Chika Mordi made this call in his presentation at a media briefing on the forthcoming business community outreach event of the agency expected to take place in Lagos. Expressing the need for more focus on competitiveness, he said that current economic outputs are not enough to solve the challenges in the country,
He stated that Nigeria faces development challenges, an evidenced by poor economic outcome, adding that there is need to measure policies, institutions, and productivity, which make up the development of an economy. He said that this would help in benchmarking performance.
Mordi further said that competitiveness is how countries create the best economic, social, and environmental conditions for economic development,”
.Speaking further he said “competitiveness will make Nigeria a more productive business location through policy recommendations and initiatives that lead to enhanced created prosperity.
“Improve Nigeria’s business environment through policy advocacy and initiatives anchored on quality research and analysis,” he added.
He expressed concern that about 70 per cent of Nigerians still live below the poverty line, with very high structural unemployment in the country and low oil per capita.
He stated that competitiveness would lead to increase in productivity, opportunities, and talent attraction and retention.
“We foresee many positive effects including: economic diversity (government revenue employment, sustainable growth, more jobs, decrease in poverty and improved quality of life for the vast majority Nigerians.”
Global Competitiveness Indices benchmarks the performance of Nigeria against other countries. Some of the indices include the World Bank’s Doing Business Report, World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index, Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, among others.
He explained that the global competitiveness indices are important because partly, investors and businesses review them before determining where to put their money.
“A change in perception is key, since most rankings are partially or fully based on surveys. Internal perception is just as important as external perception,” he added.
