Franklin Alli
8 January 2009
AMIDST tumbling crude oil prices and depreciating Naira, Abuja Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture(Abuccima) has called for strict monetary spending by governments at both Federal and State levels.
"Government leaders must adopt very strict fiscal measures and they must be very responsible in spending state resources," said the Chamber's new President Barr. Dele Oye,
Fielding questions from newsmen in Lagos, Oye, noted that there is no question about the fact that 2009 holds a lot of challenges.
"The economic recession blowing across the world is no fiction. The proponents of free markets and countries that can be described as the proprietors of capitalism have taken the socialist approach to save their economies. Trillions of dollars have been announced by governments in Europe and America as funds to help bailout ailing companies and institutions whose failure portend serious risk to their economy. For us in Nigeria our case is very intricate. Our economy depends mainly on crude oil and this is the commodity that has been seriously hit by the global economic melt down, like it has come to be known," he said.
Oye, whose inauguration ceremony is billed to hold next week, said his administration will focus on encouraging and attracting trade ,commerce and foreign direct investment to the country, particularly Abuja.
"While nurturing existing relationships, we intend to expand our current relationship to include more Chambers of Commerce all over the world and indeed forge very close working relationship with other Nigerian chambers of commerce(s). We are currently working with Kano Chamber of Commerce on the development of a market within the FCT, such joint venture efforts will continue under my tenure as president of ABUCCIMA. As part of building relationships with the Asian Countries, we organized three trade missions to India, China and Hong Kong in 2008; we intend to organize more in 2009," he said.
"Our recent trade mission to Toronto, Canada was an eye opener, we observed the steady, orderly and remarkable development of Canada as a model we need to look closely, for us to adopt some of their best practices without repeating their mistakes. Firstly Canada is a country where rules are enforced strictly, their innovative power generation through turbines needs to study and possibly copied here, we intend in the next few weeks to provide detailed information on our visit to relevant agencies of government for possible consideration.
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