Economy
LCCI Advises Govt on Revenue Generation, FX Inflows
Dr Chinyere Almona, Director-General, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has charged the Federal Government to value and utilise its assets to generate more revenue for the country and increase foreign exchange inflows.
Almona gave the advice in a statement on Sunday, saying the steps would help address the country’s current rising debt profile.
She noted that debt service to revenue ratio for the period of January to May 2021 stood at about 98 per cent, up from 83 per cent recorded in 2020 according to the country’s budget implementation report.
Almona described the country as an asset-rich nation owning hundreds of large state-owned companies, valuable parcels of land, and built structures in prime commercial locations.
The LCCI DG, however, noted that the assets were grossly underutilised and contributed too little to the country’s fiscal and financial situation because their market values were currently not known.
She stated that government needed to identify public assets, determine the worths, and create a dynamic online digital platform where the financialised and commercialised assets could be offered for investment.
“Nigeria needs to do an official identification of its assets such as corporate assets, physical assets, intangible assets and human capital in terms of location, purpose, and usage contained in a national asset register.
“Corporate assets should be securitised via public share issuance to raise equities, physical assets such as idle or under-utilised properties could be repurposed and redeveloped for commercialisation to generate revenue.
“Intangible assets such as breaking government monopoly in the infrastructure sector (railway, pipelines, power transmission) should be liberalised for investors to commit equity funds into these sectors.
“Massive investment in skill and talent development to increase the pool of the country’s human capital.
“The financialisation of Nigeria’s human assets will boost net foreign income and remittance inflows into the economy.
“The recommendations above do not connote the sale of national assets but a mechanism to generate more revenue from the assets without their outright sales,” she said.
Almona also called for the replacement of existing debt stocks with asset-linked debt.
This, she said, would ease the debt servicing burden, attract greenfield Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into publicly-listed state-owned companies and generate new revenue streams from commercialised real estate portfolios.
“This is a more sustainable way of revenue generation and boosting foreign exchange inflows,” she said. (NAN)
The Nigerian Exchange Ltd. (NGX) continued its bullish trend on Wednesday, gaining N183 billion.
Accordingly, the market capitalisation, which opened at N59.532 trillion, gained N184 billion or 0.31 per cent to close at N59.715 trillion.
The All-Share Index also added 0.31 per cent or 303 points, to settle at 98,509.
68, against 98,206. 97 recorded on Tuesday.Consequently, the Year-To-Date (YTD) return increased to 31.
74 per cent.Gains in Aradel Holdings, Zenith Bank, United Bank For Africa(UBA), Oando Plc, Nigerian Breweries among other advanced equities drove the market performance up.
Market breadth closed positive with 34 gainers and 17 losers.
On the gainers’ chart, Africa Prudential, Conoil and RT Briscoe led by 10 per cent each to close at N14.30, N352 and N2.42 per share, respectively.
Golden Guinea Breweries followed by 9.95 per cent to close at N7.18, while NEM Insurance rose by 9.74 per cent to close at N10.70 per share.
On the other hand, Julius Berger led the losers’ chart by 10 per cent to close at N155.25, Secure Electronic Technology Plc trailed by 9.52 per cent to close at 57k per share.
Multiverse lost 7.63 per cent to close at N5.45, Haldane McCall dropped 6.07 per cent to close at N4.95 and Honeywell Flour shed 5.62 per cent to close at N4.70 per share.
Analysis of the market activities showed trade turnover settled lower relative to the previous session, with the value of transactions down by 49.44 per cent.
A total of 320.10 million shares valued at N6.48 billion were exchanged in 7,943 deals, compared with 939.41 million shares valued at N12.81billion traded in 9,098 deals posted in the previous session.
Meanwhile, ETranzact led the activity chart in volume with 70.27 million shares, while Aradel led in value of deals worth N1.22 billion.(NAN)
The central parity rate of the Chinese currency renminbi, or the Yuan, weakened 22 pips to 7.1870 against the dollar on Monday.This is according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.In China’s spot foreign exchange market, the Yuan is allowed to rise or fall by two per cent from the central parity rate each trading day.
The central parity rate of the Yuan against the dollar is based on a weighted average of prices offered by market makers before the opening of the interbank market each business day. (Xinhua/NAN)
Arewa Youths Initiative for Energy Reforms (AYIFER), has urged Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) to do everything possible to bring Kaduna Refinery back into operation.
National Coordinator of the group, Mr Bashir Al’Amin, stated this in a statement issued on Friday in Abuja.
Al’Amin specifically called on the Chief Executive Officer of NNPCL, Mallam Mele Kyari, to do all within his powers to rejuvenate the refinery and bring it up to global standard.
He said that having delivered the Port Harcourt refinery, coupled with the establishment of Dangote Refinery in Lagos, attention should be shifted to Kaduna refinery for easy spread of petroleum products.
“We are calling on Malam Mele Kyari to expedite action on Kaduna refinery so we can be at par with other regions in the country.
“We equally beg the NNPCL to do professional work in rehabilitating the old refinery and deliver a standard and functional petrochemical refinery and not a blending plant.
“Kyari should resist any temptation that could make him do something that can jeopardise his good image,” he said.
Al’Amin said that since the extinction of groundnut pyramid and textiles in Kano State as well as PAN in Kaduna State and with the Kaduna refinery getting moribund, a lot of youths had lost their jobs.
According to him, all their hopes in the north are tied to the legacy refinery, expressing the hope that God would use Kyari to deliver it well and on time.
He said that the group was solidly behind NNPCL in prayer and would be ready to celebrate the company if its expectations were met. (NAN)
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