The economic potentials of the railway system such as the movement of goods and services, investment opportunities and generation of employment will be the crux of the 2020 Infrastructure Dialogue holding in Abuja this Thursday.
Organized by the Infrastructure Summit Group in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), the dialogue is to explore the development, investment opportunities, financing and challenges in global infrastructure.
Onuoha Nnachi, Managing Partner, Infrastructure Summit Group while briefing journalists ahead of the event in Abuja said there is nothing that drives the economy like Infrastructure, especially economic infrastructure such rail, hence the dialogue would concentrate on: ‘Rail Infrastructure Rebirth’.
Nnachi stated that the dialogue is aimed at bringing stakeholders, including the regulators and the investors together to chart the way forward in making the economy viable through rail infrastructure.
According to him, “if you take a good look at global investment dynamisms you will discover that economic infrastructure is made up of purely private investments.
“We in the Infrastructure Summit Group decides to put up these conversations to ask questions on what is holding a particular sector from growing, what is really pushing one sector better from the other and we are taking this conversation as deep as we can.
“For this one that is coming up on the 20th of January, 2020 which is called rail Infrastructure rebirth, it is no longer news that rail infrastructure has kick-started in Nigeria, but it is still doubted that what economic potential does it represents.
“What is the economic potential that rail infrastructure rebirth can give us, how will it affect our industrialization. A country of 200 million people can no longer depend on roads to convey people and goods”.
Also speaking, Emmanuel Onwodi, Director Transportation Infrastructure Department, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission said Nigeria needs to close the infrastructural gap, starting with rail infrastructure.
He noted that “the best way to move people or goods is through rail. The quantum of investment that we expect in the rail sector is quite huge and the best way to start a dialogue of this nature is to focus on rail. So the ICRC is happy to be part of this so that we can sit down and discuss this issue”.
