Introduction:

The 13th Nigerian Economic Summit (NES#13) will take place from September 5 - 7, 2007 at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja . The Summit is coming at an auspicious time in the history of Nigeria , which for the first time has successfully transited from one democratically elected government to another.

The theme for NES#13 is inspired by the theme of NES#12 which was “Sustaining Reforms & Unlocking Nigeria 's Potentials” with its concluding central message that “ national development is a marathon relay and not a one-man-dash.” It stressed that for a relay to be won, there must be three flawless inter-changes:

•  The baton holder must sustain momentum and finish well;

•  The baton handover must be flawless; and

•  The next runner must build on the gains and take the race to the next level.

Towards the end of its tenure, the previous government had articulated the vision that, “ Nigeria will be among the top 20 economies by 2020”.

NES#13 therefore, responding to the challenging context set by NES#12 hinged its theme on: “Nigeria – Positioning for the top 20 League”, a demonstration of the unambiguous call for deepening & fast tracking the process of transformation and taking the polity to the next level.

NES#13 will seek to build on the success achieved at NES#12, while providing the platform for building national consensus among Nigerian stakeholders to expanding and sustaining socio-economic policy and strategy direction, aimed at fully unlocking Nigeria 's enormous economic growth potential and positioning the country to take its rightful place among the leading economies of the world.

As in all previous Summits, NES #13 is a collaborative effort between the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and the National Planning Commission, consistent with the Summit 's primary purpose of entrenching Public- Private Dialogue, and facilitating the attainment of our National goals.

In order to make the Summit result-oriented, its sessions have been sub-divided into activity areas such as: Opening Ceremony; Open Forums; Policy Commissions and Feedback Sessions.

The Summit is expected to be declared open by His Excellency, President Umar Musa Yar'Adua on September 5, 2007, with a presentation by a high profile international speaker. We also expect that Ministers, members of the National Assembly, the Judiciary, as well as other top level government officials will attend this session.

The output of the Policy Commissions will include a schedule of activities to facilitate performance reviews and interactions with policy makers in between summits. Expectedly, these activities will feed into the policy analysis forums and other policy initiatives of the National Planning Commission, thereby strengthening the public and private sector partnership objectives of NES.

At this year's Summit , we have invited very high profile local and international resource persons to speak on carefully selected issues of growth and development, and identify a clear roadmap for Nigeria to join the Top 20 league by 2020. Among the international resource persons, a Senior Economist from Goldman Sachs will make a presentation on their research work which had identified Nigeria among the “Next 11” countries projected to join the league of the top 20 economies by 2025.

The feedback sessions would provide an opportunity to provide a feedback to all delegates on the decisions and recommendations of Policy Commissions and Open Forums. The action points emanating from all summit proceedings will formally be presented to the President during the closing ceremony on September 7, 2007.

Signed,

Mansur Ahmed

DG/CEO, NESG