Imported User:
The Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr Olusegun Aganga said yesterday that Nigeria’s domestic investment grew by 46 per cent in 2011.
Aganga presented the national internal investment profile in Abuja at the inauguration of the World Bank’s Investment Climate Assessment (ICA) report.
He said that the investment dividends based on the ICA assessment of investment climate in 26 states of the federation was through the Federal Government effort.
Aganga, who spoke on “Reforming the Nigeria’s Investment Climate,” said that Nigeria remained the preferred investment destination in Africa.
``The performance of Nigeria in the recent report issued by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) about the global investment flow across the world indicated that investment flow globally has increased by 16 per cent.
``It said that the flow to Africa has come down by one or two per cent because of the war in Egypt, Libya and the others.
``But what is important to us is that the investment flow to Nigeria has gone up by 46 per cent to N8.9 billion,’’ he said.
According to him, in spite of all the challenges of doing business in Nigeria, the country in the period under review, came third in terms of the level of investments attracted.
``If you look at debt to GDP ratio, it’s under 20 per cent, the average in Europe is 88 per cent, the average in the world is 87.6 per cent, the United States and some others are more than 100 per cent.
“For an economy to attract investment, you have to have an average macro-economic environment and Nigeria in overall has the average macro-economic environment,’’ he said.
He assured Nigerians of government’s commitment to ensuring an enabling environment that would facilitate the influx of investors into the country.
Earlier, Ms Francoise Marie-Nelly, the Country Director of World Bank, Nigeria, said the ICA was one of the important areas to improve on competitiveness and job creation.
