The managing director of Huawei Technologies Company Nigeria Limited, Mr. Frank Li has hailed the federal government for achieving early exit from recession and building strong structures towards economic consolidation.
Speaking in Lagos on Monday at the company’s head office at a media parley, he said the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) efforts in building stability in the foreign exchange market segment and the rising oil prices combined together to save the economy from total collapse.
However, he called on the government to think about introducing more investment enabling policies in order to further attract more foreign direct investments and raise confidence of existing companies in the economy.
According to him, the first sign showing that the economy is on the right track is the investments of Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) in the economy rather than the former model of investing it aboard.
On the best way to deepen internet penetration and broadband in Nigeria, he called for actions that will encourage private sector investors to take up businesses in deploying broadband, saying issues concerning Right of Ways (RoW) need to be tackled head-on so as to afford Nigeria and Nigerians the opportunity to meet other parts of the world in the daily innovations trailing the Internet of Things and Big Data industry.
He revealed that Huawei introduced the Customer Service Innovation Centre (CSIC) to drive its activities deeper into the economy and grow the financial inclusion efforts of both the government and financial institutions.
According to Mr. Li, “Nigeria is very important to Huawei as it stands as the pivot on which the West African economy stands”.
“Huawei will continue to do business in Nigeria and also use its investments in Nigeria to drive Anglophone connections to the internet and business of digital economy.
Li revealed that the closeness of the time Zones and other similarities between Nigerian economy and Nigeria’s technological development are encouraging factors to stay in Nigeria and launch massive development in other African economies.
In her presentation, Miss Silvia Lambiase, an Italian media executive and official of the presigiuos publication, The Business Year, she rolled out statistics showing that Nigeria is doing well in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), but needs much to do in the area of education.
According to her, Nigeria is blessed with young population willing to learn and work and only a good education policy that is well structured to fast track the development of youth’s potentials in ICT.
Earlier, the former chairman of NITEL board, Mr. Vincent Maduka traced in his presentation, the old days of telecommunications in Nigeria, saying today, the country has achieved millage when compared to how communications used to suffer Nigerians.
