 I bring you the very warm greetings of Mr. President, President Mohamed Buhari, who I know has sent his apologies ahead today. It's a pleasure, of course, to join you at this year's Nigeria Economic Summit. Over the years, the summit has become the forum for high-quality engagements among thought leaders, captains of industry, civil society, and decision-makers in the highest echelons of government on the economy of our country. And we must again commend the organizers for their tenacity in not only ensuring that the summit holds and has held unfailingly for 27 years, but also for maintaining the depth and breadth of interactions, always with remarkable objectivity and a high sense of responsibility. The theme for this summit, 2023 and beyond, priorities for shared prosperity, calls on us to reflect on what our priority should be to attain inclusive prosperity from 2023 and beyond. And this is an important question, especially given the frightening headwinds of the past three years and the emerging local and global trends that will most certainly define the future. We are to borrow an expression buffeted on all sides, local security and economic challenges, global turbulence on the political, economic, and social fronts. The Russia-Ukraine war and tensions amongst great powers, all of these impacting food prices, impacting macroeconomic indices, and of course disruptions also to democratic governance here and there, especially in West Africa. The global economy is yet to recover fully from the effects of COVID-19, especially debts that were racked up to cope with the economic slowdown, and there is continuing disruption of global supply chains. Added to these, of course, are all the existential challenges around climate change, especially droughts, flooding, and we've seen the very severe consequences of that in many of our states here in Nigeria. So given this background, it's clear that our work is cut out for us and that we have to choose our priorities very carefully going forward. There are, of course, a whole gamut of things that require our attention, and many have been well-captured, not just by the some of the comments that have been made already and some of the remarks and speeches that have been made already. But we also have a comprehensive documentation, as the Minister of Finance has said, in our national development plan 2021 to 2025. But permit me the liberty of sharing just one or two of these priorities. I cannot, of course, be anywhere near as eloquent as at the pitch aside in his very submissions on the low-hanging fruits. Neither can I even be anywhere near as direct as some of the things that he suggests. But I must say, but I must say that I look forward eagerly to joining you also on that side, where I can, on an annual basis, insult the government to my heart's content. But the first of these, some of these indicators, is the improving macroeconomic conditions. I think on the positive side, the economy continues to grow with GDP growth at 3.54%, as we've heard, in the second quarter of this year. None all revenues are also up and they continue to improve, especially since some of the initiatives in the Finance Act. For instance, the increase in VAT from 5% to 7.5%, led to an increase in revenues by as much as 69% above the target for 2021, while also in the same period, corporate income tax increased by 15.5% above target. Customs duties also went up by 10% above target and independent revenues of our government were up by 17.8%. So there's a fair amount of good news. But it is still our revenue challenges that heighten the notion that we have a major debt problem, which is really the case, which is really not the case, beg your pardon, given the fact that our debt to GDP ratio is just 23%. But it's also true that what matters right now and what matters and what will matter is our debt service to revenue ratio, which is undoubtedly high. But I think that it is in increasing revenues that must engage our attention and that's really what we must focus on. We've already seen real improvements, as I've mentioned, in non-euro revenues. But our focus must now be on productivity or encouraging value addition. Productivity and value addition means creation of traceable value, tradable value. It means jobs and opportunities and it means more tax revenue. To increase productivity, we must free up our environment for business. And I think it was Professor Ogumu who mentioned that government needs to create the environment, get out of the way so that the private sector can do its business well. And that I think is true because we must create the environment for business to make local and international trade easier by fixing our ports, affecting the national single window, revamping our customs processes and tariff codes to reduce delays and arbitrariness, removing needless restrictions on imports to enable value added processes, etc. Of course, our exchange rate regime remains an issue of some concern. The discussions that we must have, shown of sentiments, is how best to manage the situation by finding a mechanism for increasing supply and moderating demand, a mechanism which will be transparent and which will boost confidence. And I'm sure that we can recall that the central bank has in many, many, well, some years back been able to do so by means that were not necessarily perfect. Your interbank foreign exchange market, for example, retail.option system, wholesale.option system, all of these price discovery mechanisms which at least were transparent, evident for all to see, and they worked. So I think that what we should be looking for is not necessarily any perfect rules, but we must certainly prevent a situation where we have the kind of arbitrage that we have. And the way to do that is really to increase supply. Demand management, obviously from everything that we've seen, is not working. It is important that we focus on increasing supply. This will boost confidence, it will increase the confidence of the local business, it will increase the confidence of our foreign investors as well. People need to see that they don't have to, as has been suggested, that they don't have to have any particular reason, have any particular attributes to be able to access foreign exchange. So I think that's important for us to look at how to do something, something serious about our foreign exchange systems. Going ahead of that, I also think that it is time for us to look at the other issues that most concern us and require urgent action. Inflation, for example, needs to be tackled head on, because it is both as economists will say, a tax on the poor, and of course it disrupts long-term growth. Inflation, as has been said, and I think one or two have mentioned, it is in our country today, is partly structural, arising from infrastructural deficiencies, etc. But then there's an aspect that is also caused by increased money supply, imported inflation, and depreciation of the Naira. In addition, therefore, to the monetary measures that have already been undertaken by the Central Bank of Nigeria, we will need to increase domestic production of food, because food inflation, as you know, is a major component of that basket that shows us exactly how, where inflation is headed. But we must make sure that this food gets to the market. So some of the infrastructural constraints, some of the structural constraints, we really must deal with them. In other words, must pay closer attention to some of the existing plans that we have, and I believe very strongly that what we're doing at the moment, what our government is doing at the moment, is one that some of what we're doing are ways and means by which we can actually get things moving and do a lot better, especially with respect to food production. The insights, for example, that we've seen with respect to the agriculture for food and jobs program, the agriculture for food and jobs program was one that we began to implement under the economics austerity plan. And the whole idea was that we sought to bring to support small scale farmers by guaranteeing the uptake of their production through enabling bigger farmers and suppliers to manufacturing companies and commodity exchanges to support them across every stage of production. So the small scale farmer is actually involved in a value chain where he's supported by larger farmers and we ensure, government ensures, that these farmers are given the right inputs through the small scale farmers and access to credit. All of these have worked and can work better, of course, with a great deal more attention being paid to them. It's now evident, and I think that what we've seen, especially in the past few years and the past few months, that we can actually, and the focus of the Ministry of Agriculture has shown us that we can actually do a lot better. Yes, if you look at the figures, the growth figures of agriculture, yes, we can see a slack there, but that already, in my view, has been addressed, especially by some of the innovative things that have been done now by the Ministry of Agriculture, especially in improving the lot of private farmers and trying to get inputs across to them as quickly and as efficiently as possible. It's now evident also, that as a global issue, then possibly none that will impact local economies as profoundly as climate change. But it bears repeating, as we keep saying everywhere, and African countries have repeated this and drummed this in the air, especially of the global north, that African countries, including Nigeria, did very little and are doing very little to cause the global warming. And of course, as we have seen, the recent flooding in our country in Nigeria and in several other parts of the world shows that we bear the brunt of climate change, despite the fact that we're not responsible for the warming itself. I mean, we're possibly the least emitters of carbon anywhere, at least as far as our globe is concerned. We must continue to call for a just transition that enables us to use our abundant resources to meet our energy needs, especially electricity and cooking. This will enable us to secure the resources needed for investments in natural gas, as well as renewable forms of energy. One of the key things, of course, that I'm sure you've heard a lot of, is the move to defend gas projects all over the world, or the move to defend fossil fuel projects all over the world. But for the problems in the war in Russia, at the war in Ukraine, beg your pardon, would have had a situation where this was actually carried into effect. But I think the global northern countries themselves have realized that they also need gas, especially for their own energy needs, and so have continued to fund gas projects, at least in their own economies. So I think it's a time for us to insist that we cannot do very much without gas projects being funded, public funding of gas projects, by traditional funders and by the multilateral institutions. As well, Nigeria should continue to work alongside the G-77 and China partners on the issue of compensation for loss and damage. This is essentially requiring that those who cause climate change, or those who are the greatest emitters, should also pay to help those of us who are the least emitters to overcome the challenges of climate change. I'm happy that this matter is on the table at COP 27 now, which is going on as you know, and it should be pursued to its logical conclusion of securing additional finance for developing economies. At the same time, we must include some of the excellent ideas around debt for climate swaps in our toolkit, especially our climate finance toolkit. These swaps can be a win-win for debtors and creditors alike. They will increase the fiscal space for climate-related investments and reduce the debt burden for participating developing countries. For the creditors, the swap can be made to count as a component of their national-determined contributions or the NDCs. But yet another priority in the discussions around climate change, which is also important for us economically, is the idea of unlocking the potential of carbon markets, especially in Africa. In short, voluntary carbon markets, which of course many of us know, work by the purchase of carbon credits by corporations in the developed world to offset their own emissions. The African Carbon Markets Initiative was launched again at COP 27 just last week, and it has been estimated that Nigeria could produce more than 30 million tons of carbon credits annually by 2030 and bring in more than $500 million annually. The future are the jobs and opportunities that come not just from voluntary carbon markets and from all of the other adaptation and mitigation options that are available to us, but also the fact that as we reduce emissions, as we control all the difficulties around climate change, we can also grow, we can also develop our economies. The future of the green economy is one that we must take seriously. There's no reason at all why we should not take advantage of renewable energy. Renewable energy for us is a plus. We have the best radiation across the world, and especially in many parts, in the northern part of our country, we have some of the best radiation. In fact, across the country, radiation is excellent, so we can take advantage of renewable energy, especially solar. And we must press our advantage there. We already have the Solar Power Niger program launched under the ESP, which is designed to connect 5 million homes to solar, the solar power. We also have off-grid there. We have mini grids as part of that whole, as part of the options that we have. And Nigerians will contribute to all of this. It will be helpful for us in job creation, helpful for us in advancing growth in so many other ways. But the impact is perhaps more in the manufacturing opportunities and maintaining some of these equipment, especially the solar equipment. And there's a whole range of what has been achieved in that respect, but time constraints will prevent me from going much deeper into that. Another key priority area for us is to leverage the disruptive technologies offered by digitization. And I don't think that we can speak enough about the potentials that the digital economy holds for us. Digitalization is now upon us, and it's different from previous advances in technology, because it has become a general-purpose technology affecting every facet of our lives. But we are, as everyone keeps saying, at the cost of the fourth industrial revolution, resulting from the increasing economic viability of advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, 3D printing, internet or things, cloud computing, big data, etc. We've already seen the impact of digitization in FinTech in Nigeria. And the story of how young people have managed, from 2015 to now, between two recessions to create six unicorns, companies valued at over a billion dollars each. And that is no mean feat considering that they have done this despite the economic challenges and the economic difficulties that there are. But we must also remember that the reason why this was possible was because of some of the innovative developments, especially in licensing of FinTech, licensing of financial intermediary companies that have enabled this FinTech to be able to operate without necessarily becoming banks that require 25 billion share capital. And I think some of that innovation, a lot of it coming, of course, from the central bank have helped a great deal in giving some feeling to the way that these companies have grown. So the importance of technology, the importance of regulation, and this is very, very critical here, regulation is important. And we must be ready to adapt quickly, especially with respect to technology. A lot of the regulations that we're seeing have never ever been seen before. A lot of the changes we're seeing have never been seen before. So we must be at the cutting edge of regulation. We cannot use the same old regulations that we use prior to some of the technological developments that we're seeing. We can't use those same regulations today. And so we must continue to involve the entrepreneurs and innovators as we develop these policies. And we must build on these achievements because they give us the opportunity to live from. We must build on the achievements of our FinTech companies and our innovators, especially in the areas of agriculture, health, education, logistics, and even manufacturing, housing also. And some of all were seen in the development of smart power grids. The last but one priority issue I'd like to mention is improving our social safety programs. This government introduced the most comprehensive and resourced social investment program in perhaps the history of our country. Something this program has helped to do is a bottom-up approach to economic thinking and even budgeting. It also helped us to implement a wealth and opportunity creating environment as opposed to mere poverty alleviation. And I think that we need to take a second look at our social investment program, especially with respect to wealth creation. A lot of the components of our social investment programs have done exceedingly well and they've really added to the several options that we have for economic development. But I think it's also time to upgrade. It's time to move forward. And it's time to look especially at how we can hone the wealth creation aspects of our social investment programs, especially with respect to inclusivity, especially with respect to giving people in the hinterland better opportunities, better access to credit. And access to credit is so important. What we've discovered in our social investment programs, especially as we try to get money across to the poor and get credit across to the poor, is just the problems with with inclusive financing. The problems that are associated with trying to get your resources to the last mile. And of course, banking system is just not moving fast enough for that. But the good thing is that technology has helped a great deal. And on the back of technology, we've been able to reach the farthest places in our country. But we must be able to do so much faster and, you know, with with greater impact. We are far from the objectives that we set for ourselves. But we have begun and I believe that we must move forward. The last priority I will mention on this occasion is the need for more intentional and focused investment on our youth, especially in globally marketable skills, access to credit, protection of intellectual property rights of innovators and inventors, and access to global markets. A lot of the complaints that we hear, especially from young innovators around access to credit, these are issues that we must work on. And protection of intellectual property is extremely important. Of course, we see a lot of investors coming from different parts of the world investing in the digital space. And of course, compromising the intellectual property that should ordinarily accrue to the to these inventors are innovators. So there's a need for us to look at these issues more carefully and to invest more in creating the right environment for young people who are doing some of these incredible things to grow. I trust that some of these issues will be given deeper attention in your discussions at this summit and perhaps tomorrow when some of the panels meet. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the task ahead requires partnership, innovative thinking, but most importantly, disciplined implementation. And we on the government side look very, and we look with great anticipation to all of the conclusions that you will make today. And of course, to all the valuable recommendations that this summit will make. On this note, it is my singular honor and pleasure on behalf of Mr. President to officially open the 28th National Economic Summit for the benefit of all Nigerians and to the glory of God. Thank you.