 |
The Concept of Economic Visibility. by Cletus Olebunne Cletus E. Olebunne July 1st, 2005 Does Nigeria have the resources to be economically visible (noticeable)? Sure it does, but having resources does not mean automatic success, unless quality leadership and right managers are in place for a collective use of these resources towards a common goal – economic visibility. Resource availability gives the sense of potential, but potential is an unused resource that does no good and feeds no nation, and provides no economic visibility. Nigeria needs to stop clamoring in its potential mentality and start developing favorable business environment that encourages manufacturing economy. Only in being manufacturing economy with a global entrepreneurial mindset can Nigeria become economically visible at the global landscape. Nigeria with her natural resources is blessed, in the sense that her natural resources cannot be imitated or copied, but the western innovation, which gives them the industrial/productivity advantage, can be imitated or copied. Given the importance of acquired advantages in world trade today, and to be internationally competitive, one must have the right resources that are needed for the targeted industry; Nigeria may need to alter its absolute and comparative advantages so that there is a fit, such as by importing and developing specific skills it needs. With this in mind it will be a very excellent economic, developmental and trade strategy for Nigeria Leadership to encourage and support R&D. Am I advocating that Nigeria should copy technologies? Absolutely! There is only a hand full of originality in the global business, and those original ideas are very rare and very disruptive to existing ideas. Those rare innovative ideas require heavy financial and time investment; Nigeria is not at that economic stage yet. In life, if one wants to advance, one needs to copy what those ahead of him or her do or did to advance to a higher level and be able to compete. Japan with no commodities (natural resources), is doing well in the global market because they invested in R&D, copied from technologically industrialized countries by investing in science and engineering; thus Japan has a productivity advantage in global trade. This is what China and India are currently doing. We cannot be coward about copying technologies, encouraging it, or be hindered by the global standard of the Intellectual Property (which may not favor us anyway). Nigeria needs to come up with strategic plan towards industrialization, economic visibility and business leadership. There are two approaches Nigeria can take towards industrialization and economic visibility: The first approach involves altering conditions that affect factor proportions, efficiency, and innovation. Nigeria should upgrade production factors, by improving human skills through education, providing infrastructures (transportation, communications, capital markets, utilities), promoting a highly competitive environment so that business leaders are forced to make improvements, and inducing consumers to demand higher quality of products and services by improving its industry regulatory agencies. The second very different approach is to target specific production sectors. But for a country as diverse as Nigeria, there is difficulty in identifying the right production sector to target. This is where individual state economic agenda should differ. Either of these approaches will transform Nigeria from a poor economy to exporter of key manufactured products. The transformation to exporter of key manufactured products will give Nigeria economic visibility. To achieve this transformation, the government should take an active role in targeting key sectors (especially steel, automobiles, and consumer electronics) and helping entrepreneurs, to ensure that they obtained needed capital. Government may give incentives for entrepreneurs to acquire foreign technology, improve on it and train workers in quality control procedures. The government also needs to invest heavily in education, increase educational attendance rate, and increased the proportion of people studying to be scientists, engineers and business leaders in institutions of higher education, as it focuses on production and economic visibility. Competition and economic visibility in the 21st century is centered on production, and not on commodities; so the earlier Nigeria leadership gets this fact, the better for its citizens. Vision 2020 Nigeria is at stake. Trade theories emphasize differences among countries in climate, factor endowment, and innovative capability, thus favoring country differences, but most trade today (79.9% of global trade) occur among apparently similar countries, specifically among industrial or the so called "developed economies", which have highly educated populations, therefore one can see that the 21st century favors country-similarity in international trade, thus the need for Nigeria leadership to invest more in education, social and environmental needs of its citizens. As we focus on entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial leadership rather than the business mindset of income substitution, we should be able to realize Vision 2020 Nigeria, where Nigeria businesses can employ 80% to 90% of college and university graduates. Economic visibility will lead to visibility in every quality aspect of living. If you don’t make it, you’re enriching the maker, and contributing to the economic visibility of the maker – nel-m.org. Cletus E. Olebunne Executive Director NEL-m.org
|