Nigeria will appreciate the assistance of the United States of America in providing technical support for the development of transportation infrastructure and its agricultural sector as the country intensifies work on its economic diversification project.
The Budget and National Planning Minister, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma told the USAID/Nigeria Mission Director, Mr Stephen Haykin, who was in his office in Abuja on Friday that though Nigeria was looking inwards for more revenue, it nonetheless appreciated external support especially in the form of technical assistance.
According to his media adviser, Akpandem James, in a statement, he said development initiatives of development partners in Nigeria should align with the objectives of the country, pointing out that although Nigeria would like some foreign aid, its major focus was generating enough revenues locally.
Explaining the essence of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan recently launched by the Buhari administration, the minister said it was to restore growth to a positive and sustained path, to invest in the Nigerian people to improve their living standards, and to build an economy that was globally competitive.
To achieve that, he said government set out five key execution priorities with focus on improving the macro-economic environment; ensuring agriculture value-chain enhancement and food security; enhancing the energy sector; developing transportation infrastructure and encouraging industrialisation with particular focus on small and medium scale enterprises.
He said the Nigerian government was fully committed to good governance and had demonstrated that in the steps it had been taking in the fight against corruption which had not only drastically reduced impunity in the handling of government finances but acted as deterrence to further mismanagement.
He assured the USAID Director that any additional support received from Nigeria’s development partners would be judiciously utilised.
Senator Udoma said the US could contribute to the speedy recovery and growth of the Nigerian economy by increasing the volume of its Nigeria’s oil imports as well as allowing more Nigeria’s exports into the United States.
He said it could also encourage its manufacturing companies to take advantage of the proposed Special Economic Zones to set up industries in Nigeria just as they were doing in the Far East Asian countries, particularly since Nigeria was closer to the US and had a huge market.
The USAID Mission Director, Mr Haykin, said it was good to know that Nigeria was strategically aligning its efforts to move forward economically and appreciated the fact that it was much more focused on generating its non-oil revenues.
Mr. Haykins said he was in the ministry to exchange ideas with the minister on USAID programmes as they related to Nigeria’s development strides and to explore further areas of assistance.
