Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Mr Wale Edun, says the country needs to invest 20 billion dollars to achieve the economic targets by 2027.
Edun said this during the citizens and stakeholders’ engagement on the implementation of presidential priorities and ministerial deliverables for the fourth quarter of 2024, in Abuja on Friday.
He said that the additional 20 billion dollars per year was required to grow the economy by an average of 6.3 per cent in the medium term.
“We need significantly more growth, an additional 20 billion dollars is the target we need for social infrastructure to facilitate logistics for agriculture,” he said.
Edun said that the government would rely primarily on increased revenue to meet this ambitious target.
He said that there was the need for a robust tax revenue framework to secure the necessary funding, adding that sustainable economic growth hinged on this strategy.
“To achieve this target and grow the economy, the government can only secure the funds from revenue.
“Tax revenue needs to be increased to reach the desired levels,” he said.
Edun said that controlling the fiscal deficit and ensuring a stable exchange rate would boost investor confidence.
According to him, this will lead to more business activity in the country and increased tax revenue from those investments.
“Once the deficit and exchange rate are under control, it will encourage investors to come and do business in Nigeria. In turn, they will pay their taxes,” he said.
He said that President Bola Tinubu’s renewed hope agenda had been a huge success.
The Minister of State for Finance, Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite, said that the event was a medium to ensure that the ministry achieved its goals.
“The federal ministry of finance, just like every other ministry, has a bilateral engagement with departments and agencies under its supervision to report the ministry’s performance quarterly.
”Specifically, all the agencies under the ministry have performed very well.
“The two major revenue-generating agencies under the supervision of the ministry are the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Nigeria Customs Service.
”They performed above their target and this is highly commendable,” Uzoka-Anite said.
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