By Sunny Anderson Osiebe
ENUGU-
The Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, has made case for
regional economic integration by the states of the federation along their geopolitical
zones to fast-track the nation’s industrialisation.
This is
even as he said the failure to maintain a uniform exchange rate was
antithetical to the promotion of the industrial sector and Small and Medium
Scale Enterprises, SMEs, and had led to the flight and death of many industries
and enterprises.
Ekweremadu
spoke at the opening of the 28th Enugu International Trade Fair on
Friday, where he also advocated linkages between different groups of
enterprises as big businesses had more access to international trade and
investment links.
The Senator said states stood to gain more and develop
commerce, industry, mines, and agriculture faster when they converge their
potentials and resources to benefit from the economies of scale.
To encourage this, however, he said the nation needed
restructuring to allow the federating units reasonable autonomy and
constitutional empowerments to take initiatives.
“Contiguous to regional economic integration is the need for
restructuring to move matters like power, railway, aviation, ports, and mineral
resources, among others to the concurrent list. That way, States will not have
to depend on the Federal Government for the critical infrastructure needed to
drive industrialisation.
“With this and visionary leaders, the South East can easily
become the Japan, Dubai, and Europe of Africa rolled into one, given the
entrepreneurial capacities and ingenuity of our people as well as the
potentials already shown by Nnewi, Onitsha, and Aba.
“By their convergence, for instance, South East States can
easily attract investors or pool their resources to establish industrial parks,
develop the Onitsha seaport, dredge the River Niger, revive the Oji River Power
Station or build an entirely new one. This is the way to go”, Ekweremadu said.
He
further called for systemic inter-governmental and inter-agency collaboration
and synergy, where each State and Local Government is able to optimize its
potentials.
To this
end, he said the report of the ‘One Local Government One Product’, OLOP, study
carried out by SMEDAN to identify unique products or services in each of the 774
Local Governments in Nigeria should be taken seriously with a view to developing
them to be competitively attractive in the global markets.
The
Deputy President of the Senate advised government to take steps to arrest the
exchange rate volatility and create special tax regimes for SMEs, noting that “currency
volatility is worse than high exchange rates as it makes planning and business
transactions extremely difficult”.
He appealed to the Federal Government and the States to
design a special tax regime for SMEs to help them to grow.
“In the midst of highly deficit socio-economic
infrastructure, running businesses in our country is a herculean task,
especially for upcoming firms, hence the need to streamline and trim their
taxes”.
Ekweremadu the Enugu Chamber of Commerce, Mines, Industry,
and Agriculture of National Assembly’s readiness to always provide all necessary
legal frameworks and legislative interventions to support the industrial sector
and SMEs.
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