Chamber of Commerce predicts challenging year for manufacturing

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce has said that the contribution of manufacturing to the Gross Domestic Product may fall from the 8.2% recorded in the third quarter of 2022 unless the government intervenes in the sector.

In its New Year statement on the economy signed by its Director-General, Chinyere Almona, the chamber called on the government to save manufacturing from decline by providing financial support and improving the operating environment.

Almona stated that factors that may continue to drive the major economic indicators are rising inflation, tight monetary policies, an unstable currency, foreign exchange scarcity and debt burden.

The Lagos chamber head also noted that currency management, food supply disruptions, exchange rate volatility, and election spending would also influence the economy in 2023.

“The Central Bank of Nigeria, in response to the spiralling inflation, deployed a tightening monetary policy, which increased the benchmark interest rate from 11.5 percent in January to 16.5% in November 2022,” she noted in the statement.

The chamber projected that the CBN may further review the interest rate upward during its Monetary Policy Committee meeting in January to 17 percent.

Punch/Hauwa Abu