Improved Economic Ranking Shows FG’s Commitment – PEBEC

• Improved Economic Ranking Shows FG’s Commitment – PEBEC

The Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council has said the country’s improved competitiveness ranking further validates the commitment and efforts of the current administration towards making the country a progressively easier place in which to do business.

Nigeria has been ranked 115th out of 140 countries assessed in the 2018 Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum.

The report, which was released last week, showed improved performance across key enabling business environment indicators, and suggested an overall improvement in the country’s competitiveness.

Commenting on the report, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment and Secretary, PEBEC, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, said in a statement, “The global competitiveness report is a validation of the systematic work of PEBEC over the past 24 months – a work of collaboration across many levels of government to progressively and sustainably make Nigeria an easier place in which to do business.”

According to the statement, the GCR 2018 is one of several globally accepted reports that have acknowledged the improvements in the Nigerian business environment.

It noted that recently, the World Bank also released the 2018 Subnational Doing Business Report for Nigeria, which recognised significant strides, with 29 states implementing 43 reforms over the past four years and moving the country closer to the global good practice frontier.

“The World Bank described this as showing ‘how seriously the current administration is taking this goal’ of improving the business environment,” the statement added.

The GCR is an annual ranking that compares the national competitiveness environment of 140 countries based on 12 pillars – four grouped under basic requirements, six under efficiency enhancers and two under innovation and sophistication factors.

Nigeria improved in three out of four pillars classified as ‘enabling environment’ – which are institutions, infrastructure, Information and Communication Technology adoption and macro-stability pillars.