 Save Nigeria with your business. I made a serious blunder last year. A senior executive in my office advised that I start saving my money in dollars. I thought it was ridiculous. I mean, to break my investment, go to black market, buy dollars, then keep the dollars in an account. I thought it was very redundant, so I ignored the advice. Less than four months later, I was filled with regrets, because the NARA was devalued again. He made money just by saving his money in dollars. A friend of mine also faced the same type of misfortune. He delayed the completion of his building project because he didn't have the time to supervise it. By June, when he finally decided to continue the building project, the prices of cement, sand, granite, iron runs, and all the building materials had risen by at least 30% when you compare to the prices in January. We are all experiencing the rising cost of everything. It is frustrating and quite alarming. I don't see it getting better because our dependence on the dollar is humorgous. From food to fashion, health, education, recreation, everything is imported. As a Nigerian entrepreneur, how can you help? The short answer is in doing international business. This means selling your goods and services to other countries. If importation is putting pressure on the value of the NARA and diminishing our standard of living, then exportation will have a contrary effect. It will help our NARA and there are so many advantages to international business as an entrepreneur. You have the opportunity to earn in forex, which I find interesting. There is an opportunity for growth and partnerships. International business will increase your sales volume and therefore result in higher profits. There is increased competitive advantage for your brand and this is very important for every Nigerian. You will serve your country by helping to appreciate the value of our NARA. Do you think this strategy will work and help our country? I think yes. The direct answer is yes. It is an obvious response. But unfortunately, it hasn't been the traded path. One tells you that an important country like ours is facing the kind of challenges that we face right now with forex and dollar fluctuation. So yes, businesses should be able to export. But I feel as much as I try not to depend on problems, I would like to look for solutions. What I have come to see is that a lot of Nigerian entrepreneurs tend not to be aware of the international opportunities that are available to them. First of all, we have a lot of Nigerians that are really catering abroad. So it means that those Nigerians, their needs, their want has not changed. Especially when it comes to the kind of food they eat, they still want to be able to eat the kind of Nigerian meals that they had and they've been eating for 40 years of their lives. It's going to be very difficult for them to start eating bogey every single day. They wear the dress as well. They still want to wear the same Nigerian kind of brands because our clothing and our brands make sense. So you have a market that has moved to another destination and those guys are not earning hard currency. So this could be your market first and first. But there are also other opportunities. If you're in agriculture, if you're in agriculture for instance, I remember there was a time someone approached me and said he knew a certain entrepreneur that wanted to start exporting moringa seeds. Because he had seen opportunities to export it in large volumes. So it means that there's opportunity for that and many much more. But the problem is that we are not looking for it. We are not researching. We are not asking questions. We are not thinking. So we are stuck within our same old ways and then we complain that everything is not going well. But I think we could do better. It's a new year. Let's do better. Let's do better. Well, so for me, of course I agree with what has been said. Our staff has pointed out that it's quite depressing that you are in a country where you advise to save your money in a different currency. It's a total inductment on the system we find ourselves. It's so embarrassing. If I imagine an American trying to save money in a currency, so that puts in context the problem we are faced with. Fortunately, we have to find a way to just get ourselves out of it. And I agree with you. Trying to make forays, exploring the international market is also an option. Thankfully, recently, the African Continental Free Trade Agreement has been signed, which makes Africa one market, takes off tariffs and trade barriers and all of that. And Nigeria being the largest economy in the continent, I think we must have a lot more to gain by leveraging the opportunity of that trade area. But again, as much as I don't like to be fixated on the problems, you can't wish them away. Now, how do Nigeria, how do young Nigerian entrepreneurs take advantage of this evolving trade area? The 12-pot policy we have. Someone says it takes longer time, it takes longer time to take your goods from China to the Nigerian pot, than it takes to take it from the pot. Thus, autumn, Apapa to Lagos, it takes longer time. So it's crazy. So I think we have to actually address some of this. These are structural issues that are affecting young Nigerian entrepreneurs who want to actually make impact but are faced with these structural issues. And something I think government will also have to look into so that we can begin to take full opportunity of the markets outside there. Victor, before you come in, I want to say something to what we have just said. And I think I understand where you're coming from because when we think of international business, we just think of exporting. Going to NACO, using DHL and exporting. But there are so many ways to do international business. The start point is we set what foreign companies do. How do they do business in Nigeria? Besides the traditional exporting, you could do licensing where you have a license to be the sole distributor of a product that is being done abroad. You could do franchising. We all know the franchising but I don't have to explain. You could do your joint venture where you partner with an organisation abroad to do business here. There are so many ways to bring it forward without necessarily going through the port and the export. I mean, what do you think? Well, I mean, you guys have spoken well, intellectual stuff. But if the policy is always a demon, do we have policies? I'm still a big advocate for creating enabling environment. How is the government? As long as we mention business and we just take out the government policy from it, then you want to do small business. You don't want to do large scale stuff or something really huge. Anything huge. You can see with the advent of how they claim that most of these things are platforms. So anything that's booming, I mean, no disrespect to the government, but I just feel that there's always this averse to once something is succeeding or booming. So they go into that. That's why I'm watching on the paper. Tech is a new oil because they see unicorns begin to spring up from there. So I think it's about we asking ourselves, does the government policies support these things? And that's where I'm coming from really. Are we creating the right policies, the right enabling environment to support Nigerians and intelligent people? Yeah, so we have to find a way. So how do we even get the government to sign off these things to give us a full backing, right? And it's really what that's always the question on my heart whenever things like this is being discussed. So I'm glad that what everybody has said today. And it is really, really enthralling to see that Nigerians are more intelligent, like you said, and we're willing to try new things. But most of us focus on what Nigeria can do for us. We feel headless when it comes to helping the giant of Africa restore her glory. The truth remains that we can help our economy as entrepreneurs by exporting our goods, our services, our intelligence to all the countries of the world. When we come back, Raymond will tackle council, culture, disclosure. Don't go away.