 I have the honor of reading the President's speech and the President has also asked that I convey his very warm greetings and felicitations to the NESG group and all participants. So the speech now. I'm delighted to be with you on this occasion of the 26th Nigerian Economic Summit, jointly organized by the federal government and the Nigerian Economic Summit group and I join our colleagues at the NESG in welcoming you all to this event. Over the years, this forum has provided a veritable platform for an engaging and sincere dialogue on the economy between the private and public sector. The NESG group deserve our commendation for their real and virtual efforts to ensure that this summit holds against all odds. The theme of this summit, Building Partnerships for Resilience, is particularly apt. If there is one single lesson to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that partnerships are essential for credible responses with lasting effect. Indeed one is minded to recall that the African proverb which says, and I quote, If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. End of quote. Our national journey to economic prosperity is a long one. So we must all certainly work together. As we saw, partnerships were essential when we were faced with a serious challenge of combating the COVID-19 pandemic. They are also necessary for framing medium and long-term development plans. They are needed for transforming our economy and certainly indispensable to ensuring that we build a fair and just society. We saw the key role that partnerships played in our national effort to combat the COVID-19 crisis. While federal and state governments work together to manage the health response and ensure the establishment of isolation centers and availability of test kits, personal protective equipment and the medicines, the private sector also played an active role as individual entities and also worked together in groups like the Coalition Against COVID-19. It is no longer news, of course, that the economy officially entered into recession with the release of the third quarter figures on gross domestic product by the National Bureau of Statistics, which showed a decline in growth of minus 3.62% in that quarter. We must bear in mind that this decline was after 12 successive quarters of positive growth and came about as a result of the severity of the global downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, including lockdowns, disruption in global supply chains, business failures and rising unemployment. We can all, of course, recall that during the lockdown, farming did not take place, businesses were closed, schools were closed, as were hotels and restaurants, and also airlines stopped flying while interstate commerce was disrupted. The retail trade, of course, also dropped. The economy only began to recover when these activities resumed, and if we were able to sustain the nearly 3% point increase from the second quarter decline of minus 6.1%, the performance in the fourth quarter could take us into positive territory. It was to mitigate this impact that the federal government introduced the Economic Sustainability Plan. All the programs in the ESP, that's the Economic Sustainability Plan, are reliant on the private sector playing a key role in creating and conserving jobs and the production and delivery of services in agriculture, in housing, in solar power and digital technologies to mention just a few sectors. To take the example of agriculture, with the support of the banking sector, the federal government is working to organize finance for farmers, and we're also guaranteeing uptake of the produce. This is the mass agriculture program which the federal government has undertaken. Five million farmers have so far been registered and geotacked to their farmlands, and about 1.5 million of them have already been cleared for credit. On its part, the private sector is also responsible for the desired local production, provision of services, and associated logistics across the agriculture value chain. We expect that the larger companies and the firms operating in all sectors of the economy will also build on this spirit of partnership by supporting small businesses, especially by including them in value chains as suppliers, as distributors, as contract manufacturers, as service providers, amongst other things. Meanwhile, the federal government has provided COVID-19 payroll support to over 16,000 businesses so far, with 101,000 of the employees getting between 30,000 to 50,000 in salaries over a three-month period in the initial phase. Up to 500,000 employees will be covered in this way, in addition to the support being extended to artisans and to road transport workers. In addition to the positive interventions in the ESP, the federal government is also sending the 2020 Finance Bill to further boost economic activity. Some of its provisions include the reduction in duties on tractors, motor vehicles for transportation of goods and persons, the exemption of small companies from payment of education tax under the tertiary Education Trust Fund, TET Fund. Companies with less than 25 million in turnover are eligible for this exemption. There's also a 50% reduction in minimum tax from 0.5% to 0.25% for gross turnover for the financial years ending between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2021. There's also a tax relief to companies that donated to the COVID-19 Relief Fund under the Private Sector Coalition. Exemption of minimum wage earners from personal income tax. So we're also proposing in the new Finance Act that those who earn a minimum wage will be exempted completely from personal income tax. These provisions, which complement the tax breaks given to small businesses last year, will only further stimulate the economy, but are also a fulfillment of promises made to take steps to help reduce the cost of transportation and the impact of inflation on the ordinary Nigerians. I'll just pause at this point to make a comment about the reduction in duties on motor vehicles. The point of the reduction in levies on motor vehicles and commercial vehicles for transportation is to reduce the cost of transportation by reducing the cost of vehicles. With subsidy removal and the increase in fuel price and the pass-through to food prices, transportation costs of course had to be reduced. Now the automotive policy is directed at localizing production of vehicles. So the logic has always been and remains that if we increase the duty and levies on imported cars and imported vehicles, local production becomes more competitive. And this is a compelling argument and we stand by this argument. But the annual demand for vehicles is about 720,000 vehicles per year. But actual local production of vehicles today by the assembly plans that we have is in the order of about 14,000 vehicles a year. So 720,000 is the demand. 14,000 vehicles a year is the supply. So the problem is that at current rates of production, we will not meet the serious national needs. And this will just mean higher prices of vehicles and greater strain on other sectors of the economy that depend on transportation. At a time of a national economic emergency, especially with rising food prices, rising transportation prices, we certainly have to take some steps which we hope in the end will not necessarily ruin what we're trying to do in the auto sector and I'm going to explain why that is so. But also will energize other sectors of the economy that were depressed on account of high transportation costs. As I said, we're not giving up on the auto industry or the auto industry policy. Two important things to note. The first is that we still have relatively high duty. There's still a 40% in all where you add duty and the remaining 5% level. There's still a 40% level on cars. So there is a disincentive for importation. The second is that we are also promoting a policy that governments must buy only locally manufactured cars. So we'll be relying on the governments to buy, the federal government for one, is committing to buying only locally assembled cars. And we'll be relying on governments, the sub-nationals also, to commit to buying only locally produced vehicles. And we believe that if governments themselves commit to buying locally produced vehicles, we will be able to take up most of what is being produced locally and of course begin a pathway to having our own auto industry as time goes on. This, as I said, this is an attempt to answer some of the issues that were raised. By the way, the Finance Act was discussed, the proposals of the Finance Bureau was discussed last Thursday. These proposals included at the National Economic Council meeting, which held last week Thursday. I go back to the speech. This is a speedy pathway. There is a speedy pathway out of the current recession. If we quicken the implementation of the economic sustainability plan, in addition with what we have done for MSMEs, the increased jobs and local production from agriculture, from housing and solar installations will serve to boost the economy. Indeed, when we complete the deployment of the 774,000 jobs, 1,000 jobs in every local government, this will give further impetus to these efforts. These programs will further improve sectors that are performing well, such as telecommunications and information services, which grew by 17.3% in the third quarter and the finance and insurance sector and agriculture and construction, which also grew in that period. Of course, an improvement in global economic conditions, including the restoration of global supply chains and the resumption of exports and remittances, should enable a V-shaped recovery. We expect in the same spirit of partnership that the private sector will complement these efforts by making maximum use of the provisions of the ESP and the finance bill when it is passed by the National Assembly and also by retaining and creating jobs so as to keep people at work. In a similar spirit of partnership, private sector enterprises should also pay their due taxes. In the context of planning the private sector, notably the Nigerian Economic Summit Group is working with the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning to draw up a success on a medium-term plan to the economic recovery and growth plan, as well as a 2050 national vision. As work proceeds in a consultative manner on developing these plans and frameworks, it is clear that we must diversify the economy away from dependence on crude oil, and we must speed up human capital development and improve on infrastructure. Above all, our economy must be made more resilient to exogenous shocks. It's important for the private sector to play a key role as we work together to identify national priorities and to influence our future national trajectory. It is our conglomerates, our firms, our companies and businesses that must make use of existing opportunities while adjusting to changing global realities in trade, in finance, in geopolitics, in digital technologies and the environments, among other things. The recent ratification of the African continental free trade area and all of the agreements is particularly pertinent in this regard. Government work very closely with the private sector to undertake the AFCFTA impact and readiness assessment before signing up to the treaty. The private sector is also part of the National Action Committee for the Implementation of the AFCFTA Co-Chair by the Honorable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment and the Honorable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning. The work of this committee is vital to ensure that Nigeria can participate effectively in the free trade area once trading starts. The private sector must contribute to the articulation of the national strategy, provide support to our negotiators and processes while taking full advantage of the opportunities provided by this free trade area. This government has always emphasized that the private sector has a critical role to play in our efforts to build a more resilient and competitive economy as expressed in the economic recovery and growth plan. Private companies in design and construction, in logistics, in transportation and finance are very much engaged in our infrastructural projects in power and rail, as well as roads and bridges and the installation of broadband infrastructure which is an essential requirement if Nigeria is to participate actively and benefit from the fourth industrial revolution. It goes without saying that partnerships remain essential to attract the resources for building a solid national infrastructural base. I'm pleased to inform in this regard that we are working actively with the Central Bank, the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority and state governments under the auspices of the National Economic Council to design and put in place a 15 trillion infraco fund which will be independently managed. The infraco fund will help to close the national infrastructural gap and provide a firm basis for increasing national economic productivity and growth. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the incredible advantage of our very large youth population is evident for all to see. The challenge, of course, is that we must educate, equip, train and provide opportunities for them. Because of our numbers, that must be done on scale. Scale in education, in rescaling, in upscaling, in providing credit for young people, in technology, innovation, in manufacturing and in all other aspects of economic endeavor. So the collaboration amongst public, private and civil society is existential for us as a nation. We have no choice in doing so. Our entire budget of about 13 trillion is only 9% of GDP. 90% of GDP is actually provided by the private sector. So talking about a public-private partnership is really a no-brainer. We have absolutely no choice. We are committed to making that union and that synergy work. In closing, let me restate government's commitment to this dialogue process and assure you that we'll consider and adopt recommendations of the summit and ensure that they're implemented by relevant ministries, departments and agencies. It's my sincere wish that working together we will identify pathways to faster, equitable and sustainable growth that will underpin national development. It is in this regard that I look forward to receiving the report of the summit. It is now my honor and privilege to officially declare this 26th National Economic Summit open. Thank you very much.