Nigeria receives an average of $6 billion in Direct Foreign Investments (FDI) inflow annually. <\/p>\n
Amos Sakaba, a Director in Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC), disclosed this in Lagos at a media chat organised by Olisa Agbakoba Legal Services.<\/p>\n
He said that the statistics on FDI inflow showed that Nigeria still ranked as one of the leading FDI destinations in the world.<\/p>\n
Sakaba was speaking against the backdrop of the 2015 World Bank Doing Business Report which ranked Nigeria 170th out of 186 countries surveyed on enabling business environment.<\/p>\n
He said that the report could not have been a true reflection of the Nigerian situation, stressing that Nigeria was daily been inundated with enquiries by prospective foreign investors.<\/p>\n
Sakaba said that a group of French investors had just visited the country to explore investment opportunities, while there were still others currently in Abuja.<\/p>\n
He said that the NIPC had designed many initiatives to lure foreign investors into the country, one of which was the granting of Pioneer Status to some start-up companies.<\/p>\n
The NIPC director said that his organisation had granted pioneer status to about 450 companies since NIPC was established 16 years ago.<\/p>\n
He described pioneer status as legal concession by government to support the growth of start-up businesses, particularly in the heat of challenges.<\/p>\n
Sakaba said that the NIPC had also established a One-Stop-Investment Centre to address challenges of individual prospective investors.<\/p>\n
He said that the centre provided a platform for 26 government regulatory agencies to address challenges of individual prospective foreign investor.<\/p>\n
The director also said that the NIPC was also assisting states in building capacity to support foreign investors in their states.<\/p>\n
Sakaba said that the NIPC laws were enabling enough because they provided for reforms.<\/p>\n
He said that there was the need to build a national consensus on the way forward to promote inflow of foreign direct investments into the country in view of the myriad institutional challenges.<\/p>\n
Dr. Will Mamah of the OAL said that Nigeria had been hit by a “tsunami\u2019\u2019 of big shocks arising from the decline in crude oil price globally.<\/p>\n
He said that the fact that the world had shifted from small hydrocarbon oil to clean shale oil had made Nigeria\u2019s hydrocarbon-based resource unfashionable.<\/p>\n
“Nigeria\u2019s potential as an investment hub is very high, but remains largely untapped.<\/p>\n
:Two questions are critical: why has Nigeria\u2019s investment promise been unable to deliver the expected results?”<\/p>\n
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