• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Investment pledges to Nigeria rose 37% to $90.9b in 2018

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Pledges by domestic and foreign investors to projects in Nigeria rose 37 percent last year, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) has said.

Proposed investments by the investors rose to $90.9 billion from $66.36 billion in the previous year, NIPC said in a report released yesterday.

A distribution of the recipient sectors of the investments shows that mining & quarrying gained more investor’s interest accounting for 35 percent of the total value; manufacturing 24 percent; construction 20 percent; transportation and storage 15 percent, while other sectors accounted for 6 percent.

According to the report, the fund was to be deployed into 92 projects across 23 states including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

A further breakdown shows that the FCT was the biggest beneficiary, with 21 percent of total value or $18.87 billion; Rivers got 18 percent of the proposals worth $16.50 billion; Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, received 14 percent or $12.72 billion worth of investment proposals.

The report showed that domestic investor’s pledge amongst 20 other countries accounted for 33 percent of the value, followed by investors from United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 20 percent. France had 18 percent, United Kingdom 10 percent, while 19 percent came from other countries.

In contrast to proposed investments in 2017, Nigeria recorded the biggest investment announcement in the month of September 2018 worth $20.39 billion. However, cumulatively Q1 2018 recorded highest investment pledges of US$29.55 billion.

The year 2018 however attracted totally new investors as against investors who pledged investments in Nigeria in 2017. Range developers topped the chart with investment pledge accounting for 20 percent of total value. Others include Total group (18 percent), Azikel Refinery (13 percent), Green Africa Airways (13 percent), and Royal Dutch Shell Plc (10 percent), respectively.

NIPC said that “the report gives a sense of investors’ interest in the Nigerian economy.”  The Commission explained however that it did not independently verify the authenticity of the investment announcements “but is working on tracking the announcements as they progress to actual investments.”