The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), says that sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, transport, telecommunications, and trade will be major drivers of economic growth in 2023.
In a statement signed by Director-General of LCCI, Chinyere Almona titled ‘the LCCI new year statement on the economy 2023,’ the body said the listed sectors would deliver a gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate above 3 percent in 2023, higher than the 2 percent recorded in 2022.
“In 2023, we expect to see growth in sectors like manufacturing, agriculture, transport, telecommunications, and trade. With Nigeria having the third largest subscriber base in Africa (after South Africa and Egypt), the telecoms sub-sector is expected to record growth above the 10.1 percent achieved in the third quarter of 2022 driven by the growing deployment of payment service banks (PSB) by the telcos, increase in subscribers using more telcos’ services, and the expected innovation coming with the launch of the 5G technology,” the statement reads.
“In 2023, government’s intervention through targeted financing support to the agro sector can boost agricultural production, create jobs, and lower the spiking food inflation that has been responsible mainly for the rising headline inflation all through 2022.
“The manufacturing sector which suffered headwinds such as scarcity of forex for import of inputs, weakened consumer demand due to weak purchasing power, high energy cost, logistical challenges, policy uncertainties, and harsh regulatory environment in 2022, may likely record a growth in the sector away from the negative growth of -1.9 percent it recorded as at third quarter of 2022.
LCCI, however, stated that the expected growth would only happen if the government would address current issues like rising inflation, scarcity of forex, high energy costs, high-interest rates, and logistics challenges due to insecurity in most parts of the country.
It said the rates rose from 11.5 percent in January and peaked at 16.5 percent in November 2022.
“This is expected to rise further during the monetary policy committee meeting in January to 17 percent to curb the persistent inflation and prevent capital flight,” it said.
“The chamber had earlier recommended that rate hikes alone would not curb inflation except the real factors like food supply disruptions, high energy cost, scarcity of forex, and the security challenges around agricultural production locations that have fueled low production and high logistics cost.
