The United Kingdom has said it would continue to promote the merits of Nigeria and the broader African continent as an economic partner of choice ahead of the UK’s upcoming Africa Investment Summit taking place in London in January 2020.
These comments came from the UK High Commissioner for Nigeria, Catriona Lang, at the 18th edition of the Nigeria Oil & Gas Conference in Abuja (NOG) which kicked off on July 2, 2019.
The 3-day conference themed “Promoting Investment & Collaboration in Nigeria’s Oil & Gas Industry”is one the most well-attended industry events in the country and provides meeting place for senior decision makers from government and energy industry organisations in Nigeria.
The Guest of Honour, UK High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Lang, in her goodwill speech at the opening ceremony of the conference, acknowledged that a key focus of discussions at the conference centred around increasing foreign direct investment into Nigeria. The Commissioner added that Nigeria’s FDI strategy was very much in line with the UK government’s trade and investment strategy of increasing investment opportunities into Nigeria and across the broader African continent to meet the ambition of making the UK the number one G7 investor on the African continent by 2022.
High Commissioner Lang said: “The City of London has unparalleled expertise in the services that enable companies to access capital, along with a range of specialist legal and professional services. The London Stock Exchange is home to 7 of the largest 10 listed oil & gas companies globally, and proud to say, home to quite a few Nigerians ones as well like Seplat and Vivo Energy.”
A spokesperson of the UK Department for International Trade, Nigeria noted that bilateral trade and investment between the UK and Nigeria had increased by nearly 40% from 2017, and was on course to double by 2030. “The UK already benefits from our strong connections – between families, governments and businesses – with African nations”, he said, “ and the Africa Investment Summit is intended to celebrate and build on these common links and forge new bonds.”
On 20th January 2020, the UK government would be hosting the Africa Investment Summit in London with the aim of bringing together businesses, governments and international institutionsto showcase and promote the breadth and quality of investment opportunities across Africa.