Nigeria?s business landscape has been predicted to continue facing varying challenges through the next five years as the economy contends with different macroeconomic headwinds.

The Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) in its latest ?Business environment rankings? said Nigeria ranks 76th of the 82 economies assessed in 2025 to 2029, adding that the country?s burgeoning market opportunities and economic reforms carry the potential for long-term improvements.

?Nigeria?s business environment will remain among the most challenging in the world over the next five years,? the London-based business and market insight firm said.

?In the early part of the forecast period Nigeria will grapple with high inflation, a collapse in US dollar market size and an overstretched fiscal position and sluggish output?.

The EIU noted that Nigeria will not return to the high rates of economic growth that it achieved in the first decade of the 21st century even as international oil prices are expected to be high enough to lubricate the economy and prevent a recession.

Africa?s most populous nation is on a precipice as it battles with record high inflationary levels, an over 70 percent loss in its currency?s value together with a rising interest rates environment that?s been raised to cool prices.

But prices are skyrocketing, piling pressure on households and businesses who are paying more on borrowed loans. It?s even limiting expansion slowing down employment as firms? input costs soar.

The report revealed that President Bola Tinubu?s administration has ?pressed ahead? with the 2021 to 2025 National Development Plan (NDP) goals of a unified and efficient currency regime, alongside the elimination of fuel and electricity subsidies.

The government embarked on these series of policies as enshrined in the NDP to attract investment and expand fiscal space for its ambitious development agenda, ?although progress on these fronts is likely to be slower burning?.

But the government left other proposals such as the land tenure system and public sector reforms, especially slashing the cost of running the government untouched.

?The size of the bureaucracy will, if anything, increase. Structurally, institutions are sclerotic and dysfunctional on multiple levels, with corruption, politicisation of the judiciary, rampant instability and wide infrastructure gaps all drawbacks to the business environment,? the EIU said.

Looking ahead, the report disclosed that as a result of a loose fiscal stance that has seen public debt risen to the highest on record, ?the authorities, in our view, have no choice but to increase taxes, and there is a risk that investors will be caught out by surprise retroactive taxation?. (BusinessDay)

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