Nigeria Investment Gateway (NIG), a United Kingdom (UK) based organisation focused on promoting Nigeria as a prime destination for business and investment has disclosed that about $50 billion Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) would be injected annually into the nation’s economy through its exclusive funding partners.
Femi Omotuyi, Group Executive Director of NIG, stated this recently while speaking at the Second Edition of the Investment Destination Nigeria CEO business summit in Abuja.
Omotuyi said the organisation had from November last year to July this year attracted $4billion FDI through its group of funding partners.
“We deal with projects and businesses that require FDI. We help businesses facilitate funding because we have a group of funding partners. The kind of investment we are looking for are projects that must be bankable, credible and infrastructural based. This year is targeted for CEOS who have businesses on ground already.
“Annually, we target to facilitate foreign direct portfolio of about $50 billion dollars into Nigeria economy. We have already gotten four billion dollars into the agriculture, oil and power sector. For instance, in agriculture, we have a fertiliser company to be ready soon, a $1.5 billion solar power plant and we also funding six modular refineries.”
He said the organisation does not lend out funds but only serves as a platform that enables local entrepreneurs get access to foreign currency.
Also speaking at the event, Tonye Isokariari, an advisor with ACIOE advisory stressed the need to encourage FDI through positive projection of the country’s image.
According to him, negative perceptions affect the country’s stability and quality of an investment potential.
“We need to clean up the image the country by setting the right priority. We can do this by amplifying the good things Nigerians are doing instead of promoting bad news.
“To attract FDI, Nigerians must ensure that they adhere to all the necessary laws of the land by doing proper registration of their businesses, getting a legal representative and not cutting corners. We must therefore put our house in order because if an investor comes and sees that your home is not in order he or she mightrun away.”
Speaking in same vain, Kemi Areola, the managing Director of Vivacity PR, observed that bad news have a direct impact on FDI as investors perceive corruption and insecurity as an impediment to investing in the host country.
“We all must stand up and project Nigeria in a good light. It is natural that bad news travels faster than good ones but we need not be quick in sharing negative news concerning our country because it has a direct impact on FDI. We can only convince investors to come to Nigeria through positive projection of our image”.
An entrepreneur development coach and the Chief Executive Officer of House of Merola, madame Merola said the current system and structure in place is a great impediment in attracting FDI
She said: “We need to change our mind-set on how we see things in the country by displaying high level of patience. Most business do not have structure and we do not have good system in place to get investors in.
“We need to submit ourselves to people who can teach us on having the right structure. If you don’t have a system in place, businesses would not grow. Beside the economic issues which government plays major roles, we need to take personal responsibility of all what we do as a nation”.
Editor: LOLADE AKINMURELE (lolade.akinmurele@businessdayonline.com) Graphics: Samuel Iduh
