Austin Okere, Founder, CWG Plc and Entrepreneur in Residence at Columbia Business School thumbed up Nigeria’s business competitiveness at the CBS annual Entrepreneurs in Residence Week in New York during the last week of October.
Addressing the group of graduate students in the Private Equity and Entrepreneurship in Africa Course with Professor Murray Low of the Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Centre, Okere highlighted Nigeria as one of the top three investor destinations in Africa.
Quoting figures from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Austin reiterated that of the $57bn FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) that Africa attracted last year, Nigeria saw the lion share of about $5.6bn, which is very significant given that only six other countries attracted investments above $3bn.
This is coming on the heels of Nigeria moving up five places in the latest release of the World Bank Doing Business Report.
This is well above the average improvement of two positions by the MINT countries (comprising Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey).
More importantly, the “Starting a Business” and “Getting Credit” pillars saw the most significant changes, moving up nine and 73 places respectively, further indicating better engagement with the SME (Small and Medium Enterprises) sector, which tends to be the engine of growth in most developing economies of the world.
Advising the audience to explore other viable geographies, Austin reiterated his view expressed at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Meeting of the Global Champions in Tianjin, China, that the new frontiers for business expansion following saturation in the developed markets were Africa and Latin America.
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He however cautioned against wholesale importation of western business model templates into these emerging markets given the different geographies, peoples and cultures.
He counselled local partnerships to explore the immense opportunities in a mutually beneficial manner. In Okere’s view, significant milestones have been achieved in important areas such as pervasive broadband access, making it possible to pursue hitherto impossible business models in Cloud Computing and eCommerce.
He also enumerated the giant strides in Power Sector reforms, Agriculture and SME support and financial inclusion through the Central bank’s Cashless Initiative, leading to improved financial transparency; and the adoption of the IFRS Accounting standard leading to greater corporate governance standards.
According to Austin ‘the recent admission of the Nigerian Stock Exchange into the World Federation of Exchanges is testimony to the huge success of the Capital Market reforms, and serves as a positive barometer for investors’ appetite’.
Ben Uzor
