FG to secure $600 million investment fund for mining sector

Federal government of Nigeria is working with the Nigeria stock exchange and others to secure a $600 million investment fund for the mining sector.

Yemi Osibanjo, Acting president of Nigeria disclosed this in Abuja on Tuesday stating that the mining sector is a priority for the Nigeria government and a push up for economic growth and diversification agenda hence provision of every required fund will be made available to the sector.

Osibanjo was speaking at a collaboration meeting of mining stakeholders in Africa, titled, “Placing the Nigeria mining sector on the international mining calendar.”

According to him the summit is a key step towards achieving the economic recovery and growth plan stressing that the argument for diversification is straight forward one for a country like Nigeria.

He said “The argument for diversification is direct for our country as we experienced the recent fall on revenue as a result of dependence on one source of revenue.
He stressed that this is right time for Nigeria to diversify it’s economy so as to provide jobs.
He said “now is the best time to transit from an old base economy to a diversified global competitive economy that will provide jobs and industrialisation.

Explaining the determination of the federal government towards the sector, he said funds for investment have been secured from both domestic and international sources for the sector.

He said “we have also secured funding from both domestic and international sources for investment in the solid mineral and industry as the ministry has been granted access to the mining sector component from the natural resources develoment fund a sum of N30 billion and intervention fund from the federal government. This is to help provide grant to the industry participant as well as for direct investment in infrastructure”
“Internationally we have gotten $150million from the world bank for mineral sector support for economic diversification program, this will provide technical assistant for restructuring or operationalisation of the solid mineral development fund to make finance available to small mining operators through micro finance institution” he added.

The recently launched Economic recovery and growth plan targets a 7percent growth rate by 2020 but set a more aggressive growth rate of 8.54% for mining sector. With a long term goal of increasing the contribution of mining to GDP by $27 billion in 2025.

Fayemi Kayode, minister of mines and steel explained that the Africa mining is one of the African instrument that unites the continent toward achieving a particular objective and use it’s resources to tackle challenges.

He further explained that the government is set to position the sector as a major player in diversifying the nation’s economy.

He said “One of the goals of our government is to position our mining sector to play a major role in sustainably diversifying our country’s revenue base by creating jobs and fast tracking industrialisation”.

“We therefore thought to bring all stakeholders in the region together to share idea on how to make our resources work for our citizens.We intend to place Nigeria prominently in the international mining calendar and beneficially attract attention to our country”, he added.

 

Cynthia Egboboh, Abuja