The Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), said it was developing a comprehensive masterplan to attract more Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) into the country.
Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer, NIPC Hajiya Saratu Umar, disclosed this at a media parley yesterday in Lagos.
She said the Commission would achieve the vision of transforming the Nigeria into a destination of choice for investors through the Nigerian Investment Promotion Masterplan (NIPM), which would be ready within two months.
Umar explained that the masterplan would look at different sectors of the Nigerian economy that would attract FDIs, including agriculture, solid minerals, infrastructure, food processing among others critical sectors.
The NIPC boss added that the agency would provide investment strategies for every sector, which would help potential investors with vital information to take investment decisions.
According to her, the masterplan will also detail strategies with which the Commission will engage investors within and outside the country.
“We will lean more on agriculture, mining and infrastructure. Particularly for agricultural products and solid minerals, we will look at the entire value chain; on how to minimise exporting them as raw materials butmmore as finished products.
“We must encourage investments in the non-oil sector, which will generate more foreign exchange for the country.
“The non-oil sector is not doing badly, but we need to do more as a country to promote investments in the sector rather than depend solely on the oil sector,” Umar said.
Speaking on the challenges of the business environment such as insecurity in some parts of the country and poor infrastructure, she said they were not enough to deter foreign investors.
“Our duty is to promote Nigeria as an investment destination of choice. We have challenges like many other countries.
“There is no country in the world that does not have one form of challenge or the other,” she said.
The NIPC boss said the country’s challenges in the power and transportation sectors were also investment opportunities.
“The challenges represent opportunities for investors to come in and invest in these sectors, and in the process create jobs for Nigerians. Even with the security situation, in our engagements with foreign investors, we tell them there are still some parts of the country that are safe, where investors’ aspirations will be met.
“And we are confident that in the areas we have security challenges, those challenges will soon be over. The security challenges will not be forever, we hope they will fizzle out.”
“We will work with other agencies to resolve some of the issues so that we can achieve the desired objective,” said Umar