…Promises dramatic change soon
From Aidoghie Paulinus, New York
The Federal Government, through the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Okechukwu Enelamah, has said President Muhammadu Buhari is obsessed with the country’s infrastructure deficit.
This was even as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, who represented President Muhammadu Buhari at the Nigeria-US Business Investment Forum held yesterday in New York on the sideline of the ongoing 72nd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), said the country had in stock, a lot of incentives for foreign investors.
The incentives, Onyeama stated, were a much more stable environment, a lot of enabling business initiatives, one-stop-shop for registration of names for getting passport into the country and customs clearances.
Other incentives, according to Onyeama, were a huge market of almost 193 million people, a bigger market with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), good governance and more security.
Speaking during the interactive session, Enelamah said infrastructure was very central to the current administration.
He added that Nigeria is a welcoming business destination to foreign investors, promising that the Nigeria the outside world see today would not be the Nigeria of tomorrow. “I wanted to summarise three or four themes that have been sort of said in different forms, but I think it is a message that must not be lost to this audience.
“I think the first one is the centrality of infrastructure to this government and to just sort of our game plan for the country. We have a president that is very focused, even obsessed with the infrastructure deficit and making sure it is addressed.
“I think it is important to note that because it represents both opportunity for investment, as well as frankly, for those of you that are strategic in thinking about your investment, you could almost factor that in, in terms of ease of doing business, and the enabling environment and the infrastructure we will inevitably create,” Enelamah said.
Enelamah added that any analyst that looked upon what is happening in the country, would attest to the fact that the efforts being made by the government would inevitably change the infrastructure landscape dramatically.
“And I think anybody who is an analyst, or anybody who follows Nigeria and looks at all that is going on, I mean, we have talked about the rails, the concession with GE, the arrangements with the Chinese over new roads construction, the things that are going on with the airport concessions that have been announced worth sharing and all those we are doing with our Aviation Minister and so on, and the work we are doing with special economic zones, the huge amount of resources that are going into power, and I think these efforts, in my considered view, would inevitably change the infrastructure landscape in Nigeria dramatically,” Enelamah added.
Enelamah further said he was a great believer that if you do the right thing, you get the result, saying he does not believe in the so called mystery.
“You just have to assume that if you make the investment, the investment would be there. If the investment is not there, then the investment was not made. So, it is not as if like you can invest in power and there would be no power or you can concession your airport, bringing world class players and the airports would not be well run.
“And I say that just to say that the Nigeria of the future, of the next few years, will be dramatically different from what you saw in the past and I am fully convinced, fully persuaded that this would be the legacy of this current government,” Enelamah declared.
Speaking earlier, Onyeama said all embassies across the world were going to be transformed into business hobs.
Onyeama noted that there were a lot of investors who were ready to do business in the country.
“They realise all the benefits and advantages they have in doing business in Nigeria.
“The returns of investment in Nigeria are amongst the highest in the world. So, what I took away from here is that we have the richest country in the world and they are keen to come into Nigeria,” Onyeama said.
Speaking with Daily Sun, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Atlas Merchant Capital, Bob Diamond, said the forum was one of a shared feeling.
“There is a shared feeling that in the last year, a number of things around security, around the economy, around currency level has improved; the micro environment has improved and there is a real partnership between the ministries that are here and the businesses and investors that are here,” Diamond said.