President Muhammadu Buhari has given his nod to the innovative measures of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) towards more direct foreign investment (DFI) in Nigeria as part of efforts to strengthen the nation’s foreign exchange (forex).
The Executive Secretary of NIPC, Ms. Saratu Umar, disclosed this to State House Correspondents after her closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja,
The NIPC boss said that President Buhari supported the drive to strengthen the investment drive of Nigeria, and he’s willing to do the best he can to ensure the country’s investment drive is given a lot of traction.
“So I’m very encouraged and I’ve been given a lot of energy now, to continue what we’re doing at the commission that would help the investment promotion drives of Nigeria.
“We have the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement now area in force, and the FDI will now try to locate anywhere on the African continent as a signatory to this agreement.
“The aim for us as a nation to ensure that we channel FDI to Nigeria, so that we can facilitate import substitution, because when we facilitate import substitution, we will be able to conserve Forex, and then also channeling investments into the export sectors of the country”, Umar said.
The Executive Secretary said that when it able to facilitate exports, Nigeria will be able to generate more foreign exchange.
“There’s a challenge with foreign exchange and supplying everything we believe once we do that, the play of import substitution and forex generation will also help the value of the naira and make life easier for Nigerians,” she stated.
The Commission believed once it is able to bring an investment to different sectors of the economy, the burden of debt will decline.
The Executive Secretary said she was at the Villa to brief the President, being the chief investment promoter of the nation, on the different initiatives the Commission is handling at the moment.
Ms. Umar said that the President needs to have a briefing on the investment ecosystem and the plans the NIPC has going ahead to revamp the investment drive of the country.
“I have briefed him on the ongoing development of the Nigerian Investment Promotion masterplan that takes into cognizance the different sectoral master plans that have been developed by Nigeria.
“We have the master plan for agriculture, solid mineral and there are a number of blueprints and policies that the government has developed, in addition to the national development plan that we all know has been developed by the country.
“So we’re looking at the different sectors that are stated in these different plans, and then deriving our own investment drive along those sectors so that we go for targeted specific investment drive, targeting different countries and not replicating those countries, as well as investors as well”, she said.
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