Despite challenges in Nigeria, the investment climate is still good for private sector participants in the mining and sugar sectors who can still import equipment at zero percent duty.
Uju Aisha Hassan-Baba, executive secretary/CEO, Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), disclosed this at the economic summit organised by the Franco-Nigerian Chamber of Commerce in Lagos.
Hassan-Baba, who was represented by Idowu Isaac Adesola, director of infrastructure and services sector at NIPC, said machinery and equipment imported for the development of the solid minerals sector attracts zero and zero import Value Added Tax (VAT). She also said that machinery and spare parts for local sugar manufacturing industries attract zero percent duty.
The NIPC CEO further said that sugar to sugarcane value chain investors enjoy five years tax holiday while raw sugar importers pay ten percent import duty plus a levy of 50 percent, stressing that refined sugar attracts import duty rate of 20 percent plus a levy of 60 percent.
She added that investors in the agric and agro-allied sector can also import equipment and machinery at zero duty.
“With the economy being the largest in Africa, and consistently among the top three investment destinations in the continent, Nigeria has been confirmed as one of the most-watched frontier markets by American and European companies, as indicated in the latest Wall Street Journal,” she said, at the event which was part of programmes lined up for the French Week.
“As the country offers one of the most rewarding investment destinations, not just in Africa but, in the World, and given the investment friendly disposition of Nigeria, there is no better time than now to invest in Africa’s most profitable economy,” she told French investors.
Walid Sheta, CEO, Schneider Electric, Nigeria, said in the face of power challenges, Nigeria should embrace a new era of energy, stressing that energy is a basic human right that need not be toyed with.
Sheta said the company has provided solar hybrid solution to ten communities in Nigeria, including Sigo Opalaola Village in Ewokoro, and Ori Apata (Ogbere Ward) in Ijebu East in Ogun State.
According to Herve Canarelli of Total E&P Nigeria Limited, who was represented by Onwuka Patrick Oreh, manager, partners, new energy, solar is the solution to power challenges in Nigeria as the country has abundant solar resources, high availability of suitable land for solar plants, scalability and speed of deployment as well as flexibility/adaptability to grid.
Frederic Cheve of Vegnet Group, France, said in a bid to power Nigeria, Vegnet has hybrid solutions that reduce energy cost, bring energy dependence, while assuring and stabilising the network.
