Tina Amanda
A Chieftain of the All Progressive Congress APC, Tein Jack-Rich says only an economic liberalisation strategy will help Nigeria overcome its current challenges.
Tein Jack-Rich who stated this in an interview with journalists said that to achieve this, policy makers must award deep tax cuts, promote sectoral economic stimulus through soft credit lines to help indigenous companies produce the country’s needs.
According to the former presidential aspirant, global economic trend has its impact on Africa, which accounts for only three per cent of global trade with seven per cent of trade deficit.
“It is very essential to activate private capital growth and to join the trillion-dollar economic league. Looking at the global economic trend and it’s impact on Africa which only accounts for about three percent of global trade and seventy-seven percent deficit, it is difficult to fathom the assertion that a struggling economy with negative trade balance of about nineteen point three percent also exposed to inflation of high import dependency of what it can produce and such economy can survive hike in interest rate as the best monetary response to address surging inflation.
“This is because the current inflation is cost push rather than demand pull”.
“As an entrepreneur and industrialist of the 5th era of industrial revolution, where digital transformation and technology boom have taken artificial intelligence to record high economic levels, one key engine we need in 2023 is economic liberalisation.
Jack-Rich, however, said it was uncertain to see any political economist within the Sub Saharan Africa aligned with the policy postulation, while calling for a hike in interest rate as best fit for the economic good and stability of struggling low-income households living below four hundred (400) naira daily.
He further called for a holistic approach to the country’s economic policies.
“Ignoring economic stimulus and pursuing interest rate hike, with the taxman on the neck of businesses, will further stifle earnings and worsen access to credit for large ticket investments”.
“Also, this will increase unemployment rates, and further exacerbate the wind of economic recession, and possibly social issues”.
