to increase crude oil reserves to 40 billion barrels by 2010, to increase capacity to handle 4.5 million bpd by 2010, to increase the value that the sector adds to the national economy, and to move from an oil industry to an integrated oil and gas industry. In the case of gas, the upstream targets include generating as much revenue from gas as from oil within a decade, ending gas flaring by 2008, supplying the energy requirements of local industry from an efficient local gas market, and creating new gas industries from the old oil industry. Downstream short-term goals include improving the capacity to use the existing infrastructure (refineries, depots and pipeline systems). Privatising them is a long-term goal. Finance 168 550. In the financial sector, the focus is on the stability of financial-sector institutions, efficiency in rendering financial services, and access to financial resources and services. The CSAR highlights major achievements with: liberalising interest rates and monetary policies (credit ceilings, liquidity management and open market operations, and their impact on savings and investment); consolidating the insurance subsector; consolidating the banking subsector while taking into account weak corporate governance, declining ethics, de-marketing, the pruning of marginal banks and insider abuses; a new pension scheme based on the Pension Reform Act of 2004; and developing the capital market. 551. In line with the CSAR, the CRM found that consolidating the banks has resulted in increased capitalisation through mergers and selling shares on the stock market. Following the recent banking-sector reform, the Nigerian banking sector has become competitive and sounder. Indeed, 20 of the 25 Nigerian banks were in the top 100 banks in Africa in 2006, and 17 Nigerian banks were in the top 1,000 banks in the world. There were none in 2005. 552. However, stakeholders echoed the concerns raised by the CSAR that consolidating the banking sector has not resulted in increased lending, especially to the agricultural and industrial sectors, partly because of the stringent collateral requirements and the high risk associated with these loans. They urged government to improve the environment in order to reduce risk and increase the returns on developing the private sector. Key aspects of the environment include agriculture-related infrastructure and prices. 553. The CRM was informed that there are several constraints. They include: the time taken to approve credit, which was often too long; the absence of longterm investment funds, although frameworks to finance manufacturing do exist on paper; and the focus on consumer loans rather than on producer loans. The trend has been that commercial banks post very high profits every year. They have a lot of money which could be channelled towards real-sector activities. Unfortunately this does not happen. Instead, they are always competing for customers. 554. With regard to micro-finance institution (MFI) initiatives, stakeholders emphasised the need to improve access to credit. The current stringent