Mr. Wale Edun, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, has reaffirmed Federal Government’s commitment to stabilising the nation’s economy.
According to him, manufacturing exports will become more competitive with global counterparts.
Edun said this at the State House, Abuja on Tuesday after meeting with the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu on the progress toward the upcoming Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Afreximbank slated for June 24 to June 27.
He emphasised Nigeria’s strong partnership with Afreximbank and its commitment to fostering trade and economic growth for Africa and beyond.
The Federal Government and Afreximbank had signed the Host Country Agreement for the 32nd Afreximbank Annual Meetings.
The AGM with the theme, ‘Building the Future on Decades of Resilience’ is scheduled to hold in Abuja in June.
The Afreximbank annual meetings is one of the most anticipated gatherings on the African continent, featuring high-level policy discussions, presentations, and side events on issues pertinent to the socio-economic development of Africa as well as business networking sessions that drive integration through trade and investments.
Edun said the aim of the meeting was to officially seek the support of Mrs Tinubu as Nigeria would be hosting dignitaries and spouses of the heads of states.
He said that the forthcoming Afreximbank meeting were expected to be the largest gathering of Africa in the Bank’s annual meetings history, bringing together thousands of delegates who were top policy makers.
This according to him, includes 37 Heads of State, former heads of states, bankers, government officials, captains of industry, decision-makers, academics, experts and advisors from African region.
The minister emphasised that Nigeria’s strong partnership with Afreximbank and its commitment to fostering trade and economic growth for the country and the entire continent.
“What we refer to was the competitiveness of the Nigerian economy, bold and courageous under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu over the last 20 months, the Afreximbank has been reformed, it has been changed and it has been improved.
“We have a situation now where we have inflation stabilising, food prices crashing down, petroleum prices coming down among other improvement in the economy.
“There is focus on helping people with their cost of living, and those reductions in major prices that affect the land particularly encouraging and heartwarming for Mr. President.”
According to Edun, everything will be stabilised to the minimal level as time goes on with policies that will favour the indigenous manufacturers to be able to compete with others globally.
“The Nigeria manufacture export will be more competitive either the pharmaceutical; health products; beauty products, textiles and agriculture, it makes them competitive to neighbours, especially West Africa and the whole of Africa.”
The first lady in her response commended the minister and his team for the good works they had been doing to ensure that the economy stabilised.
“This is one of the ways that God has just been blessing us in this administration with the quality of the people that are running the affairs of the country.
“Therefore, I thank the minister for approaching us for the forthcoming AGM meeting of the Afrimex bank, meamwhile, ours is very easy being the wife of Mr President, I am supposed to be the Chief Hostess and to ensure that we take care of things.”
