The Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit (KadInvest) usually holds in February, why is the 7th edition holding in October?
It’s holding during the political year of transition, so finding a conducive date for all, is vital towards ensuring its success and October offered the opportunity for us to hold His Excellency’s final Economic and Investment Summit for his administration.
The inaugural summit held in 2016 with the theme, ‘’Kaduna is Open for Business.’’ The summit has continued to hold unfailingly since then with the theme changing to reflect the progress recorded. In 2017 the theme was ‘’Making Kaduna the Investment Destination of Choice.’’ In 2018, it was ‘’Partnership for Development’’ and in 2019, the theme of the summit was ‘’Expanding Investment Frontiers’’. In 2020, the summit was themed ‘’Infrastructure, Industrialization and Innovation’’ and in 2021, it was ‘’Towards a Sustainable Knowledge-based Economy’’ and now in 2022, the summit will dwell on ‘’Building a Resilient Economy’’.
Usually, it is a two-day event but this year, KadInvest will hold for three days, from 13th to 15th October. What events have you lined up for each of the days?
Even before those three days, we have two other days where we are holding two virtual events. The first will be the Inclusive Business Forum, which we will organize with GIZ, which will sensitize and promote inclusive business models to enable enterprises in Kaduna state to address socio-economic challenges while remaining commercially viable. The next day, we’ll host the Access to Climate Finance Webinar where businesses in Kaduna state will be taught how to access global climate financing opportunities.
Beside these events, the main three days of KadInvest will consist of hosting of the Business Expo on day one of the summit, which will hold on the 13th of October at the Centenary Park. The expo will go in depth into four main sectors, consisting of Technology, Agriculture, Infrastructure and Solid Minerals and others. Discussions will be held in various formats such as panels, presentations, videos, question and answer sessions and pitches.
The second day will consist of commissioning of various projects by His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Kaduna state, Malam Nasir El-Rufai. And the last day will be the main summit, to be held at the Umaru Yar’adua Conference Centre at the Murtala Muhammed Square. This will consist of high level panel sessions, presentations, keynotes, and video presentations that will market Kaduna state.
To ensure the virtual component of this summit is robust and Kaduna is marketed to a global audience, the summit will also have a more immersive experience and it take will place on the Metaverse. Kaduna state will be the first subnational in Nigerian history to host its economic and investment summit on the Metaverse and not just the regular zoom experience that everyone is accustomed to.
Of what relevance is the theme of this year’s edition, which is ‘’Building a Resilient Economy’’, to the overall objective of attracting investments to Kaduna state, which is the primary mandate of KADIPA?
As we transition into a Knowledge based Economy, KADIPA is doing its best to ensure we align with the State Development Plan to attract investments that will ensure we achieve this knowledge-based economy. The theme this year, is “Building a Resilient Economy.” As we face global economic shocks, we need to ensure we embark on subnational innovation to strengthen the resilience of the state’s economy to withstand these shocks and continue to diversify the state’s economy to achieve the knowledge-based economy we want. These will take place across the three key identified pillars in our State Development Plan, which are: the digital economy, value added economic activities across all sectors, and infrastructural development.
So far, how many firms and companies, both domestic and international, have signified interest to participate in KadInvest 7.0?
We have over 1,300 individuals that have registered for the event and more than 500 people specially invited. These range across hundreds of companies around the world with most of them naturally being domestic. Companies like K K Kingdom, H-Medix and Springfiled Agro as well as AFEX, Urban Shelter, AMA Pharmaceutical and African Natural Resources and Mines Limited, including banks like Access Bank, First Bank and companies like Urban Shelter, IHS Towers and OCP Africa will all participate in the coming KadInvest.
What will be the possible outcomes of this bumper edition of KadInvest?
This will showcase and reinstate Kaduna’s readiness to continue to attract investors to achieve its State Development Plan in the coming years. It will also advertise Kaduna’s comparative advantages and will display the innovation the state government is willing to undertake in order to attract investments, in line with the drive towards a knowledge-based economy via the Metaverse component and augmented reality tags that will be utilized at the summit. It will also market Kaduna as the premier investment destination in Africa as we display the key policies, reforms, and political will that have contributed towards making the state the number one place to do business in Nigeria.
Don’t forget, between 2016 when KadInvest made its debut and today, because of the investment promotion drive by KADIPA, Kaduna has attracted investments worth over $4.3 billion. Some of the notable names include Africa Natural Resources and Mines, Tomato Jos, an agro processing company that produces tomato paste, Olam Feed and Hatchery Mill, Mahindra Tractors and Assembly Plant, OCP Fertilizer Blending Plant, Dangote Peugeot Automobile Nigeria and several other investments.
Already, Tomato Jos Farming and Processing Limited has launched Tomato Jos paste into the Nigerian market in March. The facility is the only one of its kind in Nigeria that can produce sachet tomato products directly from fresh tomatoes.
African Natural Resources and Mines Limited is located at Gujeni village in Kagarko local government of Kaduna state. The mining company is situated on over 500 hectares of land with an expected workforce of 2,000 workers made up of Nigerians and 300 expatriates. In September, 2017, President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned Olam Feed and Hatchery Mill, Africa’s biggest hatchery and feed mill which cost over $150 million. The investment includes bird- and fish-feed mills with the capacity for 360,000 metric tons each.
From the year 2021, even with the impact of the Covid19 pandemic on the world, with economic activities slowing down considerably, Kaduna state managed to attract over $900 million worth of actualized investments both Domestic Direct Investment (DDI) and Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs), the most notable name being Zipline, a company delivering drugs to hard-to-reach places using drones.
The first of its three distribution centres was commissioned four months ago at Pambegua and the facility has the capacity to house hundreds of healthcare products, including medicines, routine vaccines, and COVID-19 vaccines. The company’s drone service technology will cover more than 46,000 square kilometers and serve over eight million people in Kaduna state when all the three distribution centres are working.
Briefly, what is the mandate of KADIPA as a government agency, beyond organizing the yearly KadInvest?
KADIPA is a one-stop shop investment Centre in Kaduna state that initiates, promotes and facilitates investments via green-field and brown-field projects and public-private partnerships and privatization. Part of its mandate is organizing the annual economic and investment summit. The Kaduna Economic and Investment summit showcases the investment opportunities in Kaduna state as well as consolidate on the gains in order to maximize the state’s economic potential. Part of the mandate of KADIPA is to also ensure that investments in the state are retained and encouraged to expand. This is why the agency provides Aftercare services where the managers of the agency visit businesses to hear and see firsthand the encumbrances they may be facing and see possible areas of collaboration to remove these encumbrances to ensure the companies expand.
KadInvest 7.0 Facts
-Kaduna Investment Promotion Agency (KADIPA) has been convening the Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit (KadInvest) since 2016;
-So far, KADIPA has attracted investments worth over $4.3 billion in the last six years;
-Starting from Thursday, October 13th, the 7th edition of the summit, KadInvest 7.0, will hold for three days;
-Several companies, both domestic and foreign, have indicated interest to participate;
-The theme of this year’s summit is, ‘’Building a Resilient Economy’’ and it will run from 13th to 15th October 2022;
-Day one will feature the Kaduna Business Expo at the Kaduna Centenary Park, which promises to be an immersive experience;
-On the second day, His Excellency, Governor Nasir El-Rufai will commission some projects across Kaduna state;
-The expo will cover the technology, agriculture, infrastructure and the solid minerals sectors;
-Part of the objectives of the expo is to get young people invested in agriculture, market the opportunities in the Kaduna solid mineral sector, and to understand policy initiatives to promote technology as part of the Kaduna State Development Plan (2021 – 2025);
-The main summit will hold on Saturday at the Umaru Musa Yar’adua Conference Centre;
-His Highness, Alhaji Muhammad Sanusi II, the 14th Emir of Kano and the Vice Chairman of KADIPA’s Board, will be one of the speakers at the summit.
