BY JENNIFER NWOSU
The creation of the Ministry Of Marine and Blue economy, is a new step forward by the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on the need to steer the country towards development and beyond for what it takes to be a 21st century economy.
The Blue economy generally is ascribed to the exploitation, preservation and the regeneration of the marine environment. It is also a sustainable developmental plan to enhance coastal resources. These include those resources that are in the marine biome or environment particularly focused on transportation, tourism, aquaculture, fisheries and other related economically viable ventures. Other significant avenues are those that contribute to economic and human activities including sequestration, coastal protection, waste disposal and the existence of biodiversity.
The President particularly, is focused on the Marine Spatial planning to optimize the benefits of both the traditional and emerging sectors. It is key in the establishment of a strong Blue economy that will be functional and will also be critical to maritime security.
If this project is properly harnessed, the potential to boost the nation’s economy with revenue generation will be welcome and help cut the budget deficits the country faces. Securities lending accrued by the Central Bank Of Nigeria has risen to about $7.5 billion, this amount is just to two finance houses, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. The Maritime environment is a huge market that has not even had about 10% of its’ potential tapped and utilized.
A lot of ocean ecosystem services remain under developed that will provide a lot in the way of employment, human development and capital development.
It is going to be a huge market but can it be truly sustained and what will be the fate of business investors if public- private partnership is seen as a means to develop the sector?
