₦airaland Forum

onila: Hey Nigga! long time!

How do you get to investment grade? It’s a question that interests many developing economies. Handily, credit rating agency Fitch has just published a few pointers for Nigeria, a country that is three notches below the magic level.

The research compares Nigeria to seven other emerging countries that have made the step up. So what are the key areas that Nigeria needs to improve?

Three that most need improvement are: per capita GDP, reserve cover and governance. The metrics which Nigeria needs to improve aren’t necessarily a barrier to investment grade. As the author of the report, Richard Fox told beyondbrics: “A weakness can be offset by a strength – no particular indicator disqualifies a country, but you have to compensate elsewhere.”

Fox pointed out that China – rated A- by Fitch – has a low per-capita income compared to other investment-grade sovereigns – but it clearly has strengths in its balance sheet and elsewhere.

On the issue of foreign exchange reserves, Fox wrote that Nigeria’s position could be improved relatively rapidly by high oil prices, especially as other oil exporters were seeing a quicker strengthening of reserves. Higher reserves would offset, for Fitch at least, the high level of commodity dependence, which at 70 per cent is above the investment grade average of 51 per cent. But as per Fox’s report:

… although the Federal government’s budget deficit and consolidated government budget surplus are within the range experienced by newly [investment grade] countries, they are not as strong as some of the major oil producers when they made the transition to IG – notably Azerbaijan and Russia. Increased fiscal savings in Nigeria’s new sovereign wealth fund will be a key driver of Nigeria’s rating.

So how long will it take Nigeria to get to investment grade? Fox point out that a typical three-notch improvement can take between six and eight years, which fits with the Nigerian government’s Vision 2020. “It’s a plausible target,” said Fox

http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2012/03/27/what-nigeria-needs-to-make-the-grade/#axzz1qSfbvl6q

BlackPikiN: ^^^^So Igbo threads are the ones you can will face squarely abi?

You know no where Aso Rock dey again!

You are really insecure and no amount of twisting can deny it!

Go get a life and stop the f0rking I am a Nigerian sh/it!

You no get village again?

BlackPikiN: ^^^^You are becoming real nuisance!

WTF is your problem?

Igbo matter don make u dey go madt?

Are you Alh Harem's cousin?

You are in every Igbo thread showing your insecurities!

shymmex: I think three airports are not enough, why can't you ask for fifty? Nigerians are dying everyday from hunger, stress, lack of health care, and lack of basic infrastructures - yet you want the government to waste the scarce resources on irrelevant structures.

Nnenna1: Olodostein has a point in that manufacturing and homegrown production is paramount in any form of development. China, Japan and Russia did not become superpowers largely by foreign investment. Nigeria as a whole is a colossal failure in garnering as much self-sufficiency as possible. Number one reason for this stemming from lack of electricity.

If the electricity problem was solved and Nigerians (including those in the diaspora) are as resourceful and as creative as I think, many of the basic fundamental needs would have been solved since yesterday.

I honestly believe this.

Come to think of it - I find it surprising that no one has thought of affordable and alternative methods for generating electricity (I.e. Fuel free) to sell. Would this be illegal since electricity generation is a FG scheme?

tanimz: @Poster - Were you bitch-slapped in your sleep or something?

chino11: Keep deceiving yourself. Is it the same building that is now inhabitable, a building which has been taken over by rats and cockroach. A building which has decayed.

You eddiots should be more concerned in providing real bridges for your people instead of this.