By Our Reporter
The Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) has called on the Federal Government to embark on urgent fiscal and financial reforms to reposition the economy for sustainable growth.
In its review of the recent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rebasing exercise conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the NESG advised government to unlock the full potential of agriculture, moving beyond subsistence farming to large-scale production.
“Leverage agriculture’s resilience by moving beyond subsistence. Scale mechanisation, expand irrigation, improve rural transport, and build agro-processing hubs to raise productivity, value capture, and export potential,” the group stated.
The NESG stressed that economic growth must be anchored on productivity. With Nigeria’s GDP averaging 4.4% growth over the past six years, the group highlighted the need to stimulate value-added expansion in sectors with high employment potential. This, it said, requires targeted industrial policies, competitiveness programmes, and technology adoption in agriculture and manufacturing.
On fiscal management, the NESG warned against complacency despite the new GDP ratios. It recommended expanding non-oil revenues through digital tax systems, broadening the tax base, and enforcing compliance. The group also urged improvements in spending efficiency by adopting performance-based budgeting, while deepening financial intermediation to expand credit access and mobilise capital market funding for the real economy.
“The rebasing of Nigeria’s GDP is more than a recalibration of economic statistics; it is a diagnostic scan revealing deep structural imbalances and fiscal vulnerabilities,” the report noted.
With reports from the Vanguard