The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) says it tracked $8.41billion worth of Investments from 15 projects across eight states. The states include Bayelsa, Lagos, Kano, Nasarawa, Delta, Edo, Bauchi and Akwa Ibom.
At the Q1 NIPC media parley, the Director, Strategic Communications of NIPC, Emeka Ofor, in his presentation said, the sources of the investments into these states are the United kingdom, the United States, India, China, Nigeria and others, while the sectors affected were manufacturing, construction, mining and quarrying, agriculture and electricity.
He cautioned the media against escalating news particularly critical news capable of scaring and driving investors to other climes, saying, “We must not unnecessarily escalate news, let’s try to reduce the tempo because a single reportage may cause damage to to country, investment-wise, so we must be cautious about our reportage,” he added. Ofor stressed that other states in the federation need to wake up with sound investment ideas to attract both local and international investors to help their state more viable and independent without federal allocations.
“Material Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can only be driven by government policies both at state and federal levels. There is need for bold and coherent policy changes to deepen economic reform to reverse the decline expected in 2020/ 2021.