 An economic diversification was the center of a press conference called by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI. The conference on the state of the nation has concluded that Nigeria needs to widen its industrial economic base. In addition, the president of the LCCI says even the oil sector needs to diversify away from crude oil experts and start refining. Correspondent Adebanke Odunui has more on this. It's the quarterly press conference of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, LCCI, taking place at the Commerce House. The chamber comments the consideration of the petroleum industrial bill by the Nigerian lawmakers. It says it is making efforts to encourage the private sector to invest in the industry. The passage of the petroleum industry bill by the Ninth Assembly is a welcome development. We commend the coordinated efforts of the House and the Senate, specifically the committees involved in the process. Not just that. We are launching it into the new IT. We all know that what we have with the IT has created enough area of opportunity for the people that we are thinking about. The Chamber believes a unified exchange rate is a solution to the issue of the illiquidity in the foreign exchange market. As we are very much aware, there is still the issue of illiquidity in the market. There are still a lot of customers that need access to foreign exchange, but they cannot get it because of the fact that the volume there is not enough to meet their demand. So we still have a challenge. We have to get much more illiquidity so that the needs of the customers can be met. And the only way you can do that is to have a truly unified exchange rate between the official NAFEX right now and the power market that will encourage everybody now to sell through their particular rate. The Central Bank of Nigeria's export proceeds policy is said to be discouraging businesses from exporting goods. They are now being asked their income, when they make income, their export proceeds is now when it is converted into Naira. It's done at the official rate, whereas they would get more money if it's done at the parallel rate. So the point is it's creating a big gap. So businesses are not encouraged to export if what they are going to get at the end of the day is less than what they should be getting. After all said, the LCCI concludes that tackling insecurity is a major factor to achieving economic growth in Nigeria. Reporting for Plus TV Africa, Adebanke o Dunween.