Investment commitment to various sectors of the Nigerian economy fell by 67 percent in the first half of 2019 to $15.15 billion compared $45.74 billion pledged in the comparative period of the previous year, according to figures of investment announcements obtained Wednesday from the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC).
The figures were contained in the “Report of Investment Announcements in Nigeria” released by the commission and categorised by sector, investors’ country of origin, and destination.
The “report is based only on investment announcements cited in the NIPC Intelligence Newsletters published from January to June 2019,” NIPC stated. “It may not contain exhaustive information on all investment announcements in Nigeria during the period.”
Despite the decline in value, domestic and foreign investors were willing to invest in 43 projects in the first half of this year across 12 states of the federation including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, higher than 42 projects that investors pledged to fund across 9 states and the FCT in the same period in 2018.
Among the 12 states that attracted investment interest for the period, investors pledged the largest amount of $1.1 billion to Ondo state, helping the state displace Rivers state with the largest value of proposed investment, while Lagos and Ogun followed with $0.6 billion and $0.2 billion, respectively.
A sectorial analysis of the announcements shows that Mining & Quarrying sector got the biggest chunk of $12.3 billion, making it account for 81 percent of the total value; Manufacturing, 14 percent ($2.2 billion); while Finance and Insurance, Information & Communication, and other sectors each accounted for 2 percent ($0.2 billion) of the value.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc of Netherlands proposed investments worth $10 billion. As a result, the Netherlands accounted for 66 percent of the investment pledges; Morocco, 14 percent owing to $1.5 billion, while Nigeria took 9 percent of the investment value. Malaysia accounted for 6 percent, while other countries took the remaining 5 percent.
Other top investors who announced their interests in the review period include Morocco’s OCP Group which planned to invest $1.5 billion in Ogun, Kaduna and Enugu, and Neo Themis/Kingline and Crown Refinery & Petrochemical Limited which declared investments worth $0.6 billion and $0.5 billion to Ondo, according to NIPC’s report of investment announcements in Nigeria.
Similarly, Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev) investment commitment to Ogun state stood at $0.2 billion, while Lagos is expected to get a planned investment of $0.2 billion from Branch International, with Generation Investment Management and Microsoft each proposing $0.1 billion investment in the state.
