Lagos Chamber Of Commerce Rates Economy Low

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on Wednesday rated the performance of the Nigerian economy in the third quarter of 2011 low.

Chief Femi Deru, the President of LCCI, said, at the quarterly media briefing in Lagos that the chamber was concerned about the increasing cost of operations arising largely from high energy and transportation costs.

“The chamber believes that the economy has yet to benefit from the government’s transformation agenda in the area of energy, foreign exchange market, inflation, Gross Domestic Growth and others,’’ Deru said.

He said that the issue of inadequate power supply had not changed as far as the end users were concerned.

“Most enterprises still rely on diesel and Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to power their business and the cost of this is increasingly becoming unbearable,” Deru said.

He said that the challenge of access to credit and high cost of funds were more severe for the small and medium scale enterprises.