 Welcome back, it's over the breakfast and class TV Africa. The economy is our focus at this time around and not so chairing news right now because an adjust import bill has actually grown as our export is still, you know, oil dependent. What do we need to do? What should we be focusing on right now? Because we're having an 8.9 trillionaire deficit in nine months joining us right now to do justice to this particular discussion and to make some sense of all of that is Muqtah Mohammed He-Ee is a financial analyst and economic consultant. Many thanks for joining us on the breakfast and class TV Africa Muqtah. My pleasure this morning. Good morning. Yeah good morning to you too. Indeed Nigeria's import bill has actually grown in the past nine months and we're still you know focusing on you know oil dependent export over time we have talked about economic diversification but were you alarmed when you got a wind of that particular information that we actually spend in so much on importation? The only way you would have been alarmed is if you're not in Nigeria, I think you're not in Nigeria, you know definitely about 80 to 90 percent of what we we even consume, we export it, we import it. So you shouldn't make me so surprised by what the report that we got from the National Health Bureau of Statistics. We've always known this, we've said that there is 20 diversified but I've always said if you don't diversify, who is the colleague? You diversify with competitive advantage and we're not doing that. The only means of revenue still in the oil and like you said during the introduction is an oil dependent economy that does not change and it won't change any times. So I'm not surprised, I'm not surprised at all and if you look at that report it will also bring you to your notice that what we do is that we export crude oil and we import the refined product back to Nigeria. So it's also that when you look at that report you realize that if we start refining our petroleum product rear in this nation then we've solved almost 80 percent of our economic challenges that has to do with forex volatility and then we'll have a lot of money to do with other infrastructural developments. So it's not a surprise but it's just that I will I will ready to do the work. All right it's a good thing that you have mentioned the work and the question now would be what responsibility, what role do we have a government, a different starter to ensure that you know the story changes. So we rather have the fact that we have a growing export and a reduction in import. Well those things are not things that are achieved overnight and they have to come with careful planning and you can look at it the government is trying to do that first and famous it would be another one day and I'm of support of that government. It's not in the business of government to be in business. So they are partnering with Dango Telefinality to make sure that in the coming years I mean coming years I'm not looking at 2022 or 2023 it's going to be the coming years we could see that we're beginning to refine our petroleum product here in Nigeria that is one then secondly you can see that maybe when we are complaining about CDN in a non-conventional in a conventional banking area like trying to make sure that we have stock sufficient, especially in the area of food production. We can see that in the area of rice but if you look at that being now we didn't see rice there now but we saw wheat and CBN has gone up from beginning to encourage wheat farmers by giving them some facilities also to go. So we are doing it but it's not something that can happen overnight and again inconsistency in terms of policy could be another big challenge because sometimes there's already policies this policy so much sought from our own government. All right Mukta let's try and break down some of the highlights of this particular you know development from what we know the value of imported agricultural goods was 21.01 higher than the value recorded in the second quarter of 2021 and 56.74 percent higher than the third quarter of 2020. So the question right now let's stay on that for a bit the question right now is that why are we still important agricultural goods when we could actually you know harness that. We have arable land so we have all that it takes to be a great giant you know in the region african of course the world. And you agree with me when it comes to being a great giant you have like I said you have to be competitive advantage when you talk of cuckoo you talk of Ghana when you talk of you you talk about selling product when you say you need to mention that oh they are they are giant when you talk of rice you talk of island you talk of Malaysia you talk of Indonesia they had to develop those areas so Nigeria need to come to the area whereby we know what we want first of famous we need to begin to see how we can provide food for ourselves here in Nigeria first and that data is telling you that we've not been able to provide food for ourselves. Remember we've not bound the importation of any goods into Nigeria rather we're just hiking the tariff and Nigerians crave for foreign appetite goods is still there so it will continue to be a problem. And then secondly again you need to look at the insecurity in the land also have not had matters so some of the product that would normally would have gotten in Nigeria farmers are beginning to they are afraid of going to their farm so we are beginning to restore back to importation even the government just complained of recent that there are more influx of imported rice through the border you can see and this was an area that we thought we were already beginning to have sufficient intense about 60 to 70 percent so insecurity is one product you talk about infrastructure also it's a major challenge infrastructure we're talking about moving off your goods cost of production moving off your goods from one point another so all these are major challenges and these are no challenges that can be addressed in one of and we have like I said we always have some policies of assault we seem to see this is the way we want to go another administration will come and change the narrative so until we come up with a blueprint on how we want to go in terms of sufficiency food production will not achieve it in 1978 the war had the war food organization was established because of the war was afraid that China with the terrible population group they will not be able to feed themselves so the war came together so that when they come that challenge all of us can contribute to begin to feed China when China saw that they saw it as an opportunity and they begin to look inward and today China is importing exporting more goods in terms of food production to other parts of the world from the people that were trying to save them so you have to come with planning and knowing that look we have a challenger we are not going to play politics with it we need to know who and who is going to help us we don't need to come and begin to defend it we don't need to come and say we are doing what we don't do we need to cry out that we need help in terms of a development in terms of infrastructure and that could just be it okay so we all know that you know the country is administered in local governments you also have wards, councils, villages you have the state government at work I want you to take us through if by all because constantly when we talk about you know development and diversifying the economy the focus is usually on the government I mean the central government so I would like to understand at the local government level at the state level is there a role that can be played are there policies that can be formulated that would encourage you know export because at the end of the day or our less dependence on oil well unfortunately there's little the local government can do because what we have we have the exclusive rights in terms of resources in the last later and as they say the exclusive writers are watching don't even talk about this there's no statement one can begin to export a particular product that is produced in that state it has to go to the federal government in the soul people that can export such good not even the state so it has to go back to the constitution they have to go back to what they have been trying restructuring so it's not something that can be done by any state what states should begin to think of is whether you'll be able to feed yourself inwardly that's what they should be looking at thinking of developing you can see Lagos they were partnering with KV state in the area of rice production then but when the insecurity comes in how much partnership can you do with the level of insecurity in terms of movement of these goods and services that is the major challenge that we are facing there are some problems that we don't need to struggle to begin to produce we can produce rice we can produce curry cassava is there we can produce yam but when you see the food backstreet of the nation which happened to be being wasted have been going a lot of insecurity between the farmers and the hensmen and at the end of the day we're not going to look at the not the not is how to be the food the the way you get all the perishable goods from the tomatoes the but you can't even move them from there because of insecurity so definitely adding to our problems the insecurity and these are not insecurity challenges that have been able to be cemented by this government or but now you can see the government is doing what they have to do to make sure they address that once we are that insecurity then we begin to talk about source of certainty in terms of food production maybe 60 to 60 percent for the time being but for now it's a big challenge all right mokta interestingly uh solid minerals exports value in the third quarter of this year you know increased by 22.7 compared to the second quarter of 2021 and 222.8 compared to the third quarter of last year we seem to have you know made good uh you know in that particular you know sector of the economy why are we not exploring more when it comes to solid minerals it's a new infrastructure um you should look at those solid minerals you do we produce anything gold here in Nigeria we have an industry that is a production of gold we produce our weapon locally made weapon here so what you see that we we we talk about solid mine we are exporting the refined product i mean the the only fine products out of the country so we can begin to see if we'll be able to to develop industries here in Nigeria for those people down there could be an added advantage so what you're seeing there you are happy about it it's just in the area what we are playing in the petroleum sector the same thing we are doing in that sector just exporting our the raw materials and whereby the finished products are seen important in so our country so it's like what you say you know Peter to people all right Mukta you know i saw you smiling there but then again let's talk more you know that our foreign trade deficit you know it's actually uh this the eight consecutive quarter that we've had them this particular negative trend and so far our negative trade balance of 3.02 trillionaire compared to 1.87 trillionaire deficit we recorded in the previous quarter you know we are approaching the end of the year now what can we begin to do differently to ensure that our balance of trade and balance of payment are sort of equitable somehow it's not like i said it's not a short time problem you can give a short time solution to a problem that has been here like forever the pandemic also did not have markets and the government have to begin to concentrate on how to deal with the pandemic instead of thinking of how they can empower the non oil sector so i think that is the major major challenge that's a measure so it's not something that can be addressed in the short term it's something that we could think of palliative and that has to be with government trying to address this and that also affects government revenue so it's something that we have to do gradually like i said the first a water address issue is to measure we deal with the insecurity challenges especially in areas that we know that contribution economically to the nation is very very important when we handle that then we begin to see how we can begin to empower performers like the cba trying to come up with ways that we can have some of our products that have been imported then we can begin to have especially household products for me for children especially the children and then when you look even if you look at federal government policy of feeding of school children you realize that most of the products also are even being imported so it's a big challenge so what we need to do is to begin addressing security challenges first then try to see how we can begin to help farmers grow in terms of giving them loans and then secondly we need to look at the land land use acts it has been like the one of those ancient act that have not been repealed or new under let's begin to see how farmers can use their land to begin to get known to grow the agricultural product that could be one of the game changer and i think government is not looking at it yet all right uh finally before we let you go on mokta you know indeed we need to improve um the security situation in the country but then again don't you think we need to improve on our bilateral relationship uh with other countries abroad and our you know you know our you know export and policy generally because we had a guest just before you came on uh you know on this particular this course uh he talked about uh how they uh they have um lots of bottlenecks when it comes to exporting some you know agricultural produce is such as you know uh cash you know and all of that and then china you know indeed put nigeria on their red list so how do we begin to manage all of this so that we can have an effective you know export policy in nigeria i honestly the first thing we have to do is to see how we can trade within ourselves in africa that's why i'm so happy in the african continental trader group once they begin the volume of trade between africans and african they will not be depending so much on the chinese or going to you know look at the look at the this um theater from the nigerian bureau of statistics you realize that our trading partners are indian they are china they are spain they are they are they are netherland they are france it's just our trading partners united state of america you didn't see any african countries are trading partners so that that is it is a big big challenge so we need to look at how we can build again when you look at our trading partners we look at these countries we are not trading in terms of race sectors in terms of agricultural product the session for china and maybe india all our other trading with this country has to do with uh oil and gas you can find natural gas so and out and then you look at it and then they are the one that imported more into our country also we exported their country then they import the refined product back to us so it's um it's it's it's good beyond the the trade agreement because with the trade agreement what do you bring to the table it's what you have that you bring to the table it's what they had open to the table and so we need to build infrastructure like i'm saying competitive advantage is the way to go you cannot not be jack of all trade master of not if you want to be in agriculture let's think of what land what area do we have that competitive advantage when it comes to agriculture they have been proven that that cassava is the best in the world can we begin to use that as a competitive advantage to begin to grow a product so those are the ways it works no country will just come up one day and just say that i want to be the giant in everything we need to look at your strength so nigerians should look at our strength before we begin to go into ballot agreement you look at all those people that are trading but if you look at the United States it's just use cars in the medium are trading but most of the use cars in nigeria are imported from there so uh so when when those industries cannot just come up your fault cannot just come to Utah cannot just come they try to do that before but infrastructure especially power is deficiency so it's not all about the trade agreement the trade agreement will be there but make sure you have a trade agreement you don't have a product what what what what what what good is the trade agreement a trade agreement is better when you know you have your own product you have something that they are they are in need of and you they also know that you have something that then they cannot be bulldozing you and putting you on your red list because you two also can put them on your red list remember the trade war between america and china and remember anytime china devalue their currency america and panic because if they can chinese good chinese good goes cheaper so it has to be you have to come up with strategy all right mukta i mean i'm afraid that there's as much as we can take care we are completely out of time for this particular discussion mukta Muhammad and he is an economic analyst and we've been looking at the nation to balance of payment balance of trade and deficit indeed nigerians needs to up its game when it comes to you know being uh important dependent and all of that that's the size of the show for uh today i am just then and i am messi bopo if you missed out on any part of the conversation that's all right to follow us on facebook and instagram is at plus cv africa and on youtube at plus cv africa lifestyle you have a great morning