Nigerian Investment Promotion Council has called on states of the federation to take every possible step to attract investment into the country.
At the ‘NIPC First Quarter Media Parley’ on Friday, the council noted the difference between investment announcement and actual investment.
The Director, Department of Strategic Communications, Emeka Offor, described investment announcement as a statistical tool that could be actualised if stakeholders work together.
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“Investment announcement is not a political tool, but a statistical tool. There is no state in Nigeria that does not have competitive advantage over others,” said the director.
According to Offor, many entrepreneurs want to invest in Nigeria but are not getting enough announcements needed to do so.
Data released between 2017 and 2021, revealed the wide gap between announcement and actual investment. In 2017, where there was 66.35 per cent announcement, only 3.5 per cent of actual investment took place. In 2018, 90.89 per cent announcement was followed by 6.4 per cent actual investment. In 2019, 29.91 per cent announcement met 3.3 per cent actual investment. In 2020, it was 16.74 per cent announcement and 2.6 per cent actual investment, while 2021 has 8.41 per cent announcement and no actual investment yet.
Other data show the Foreign Direct Investment flows in Nigeria in the last 20 years.
When asked about the current security challenge in Nigeria, Offor said, “Every country has its security challenge. Promote Nigeria such that investors will come despite the challenges.
“The way we rate our country is the way it is seen. We want every state to plead with investors to invest in Nigeria. The more the states promote themselves the better it is for the state and country at large.
“A more proactive all-of-government approach to investor support, across federal and state governments, is required to convert more announcements to actual investments.”
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