By Steve Agbota
Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) has reported that $16.74 billion was tracked as investment announcements for the year 2020. NIPC said that the investment tracked in 2020 was 44 per cent less than the value tracked in 2019, which stood at S$29.91 billion.
According to NIPC, the drop in value can be attributed to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted global value chains and capital flows. It hinted that a similar downward trend is expected for actual investments recorded in Nigeria and globally.
Through its Intelligence Newsletter published few days ago, NIPC said it tracked a total of 63 projects across 21 states plus the Federal Capital Territory during the year. It added that 24 of the projects were planned for Lagos State, followed by Kaduna and Ekiti States with 5 projects each. It said in terms of value, the top five states are Rivers State with $6 billion, Kaduna State with $2.8 billion, Kogi State with $1 billion, Lagos State with $0.89 billion, and Ogun State with 0.08 billion.
The data further from NIPC showed that the manufacturing sector had the highest number of projects (10) as well as the highest value, $8.4 billion, which represent 50 per cent. However, transportation and storage accounted 28 per cent, information and communication accounted 11 per cent, mining and quarrying accounted 6 per cent, and finance and insurance accounted of 3 per cent made up the top five sectors for the year.
It added: “Singapore accounted for 36 per cent of the announcements tracked during the period. The other major sources were China accounted for 22 per cent, United States of America accounted for 15 per cent, South Africa accounted 10 per cent, United Kingdom accounted 9 per cent, and domestic investors accounted 8 per cent.
