Real Sector Gets 35% Of $8.4bn Inflow In Q1.

The Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) said the manufacturing sector is responsible for $2.94 billion representing 35 percent of the total $8.4 billion investment recorded in the country in the first quarter of 2021.

This figure makes the manufacturing sector the largest investment destination of all the sectors in the period under review by the NIPC which also stated that Nigerian investors represented the largest body in the quarter with the Moroccans trailing.

The Executive Secretary of the commission, Yewande Sadiku, noted that $4.81 billion investment was tracked in the first quarter of 2020, an indication that an increase of $3.59 billion investment accrued in the first three months of this year.

This increase according to Sadiku signifies an increased look in by investors and the high prospects of investing in Nigeria.

“Last year, we had a total of $6.47billion of investment announcements. So, this material increase of 75 per cent of investment in the Q1 is material.”

Despite being faced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects and the gradual reopening of the economy, Sadiku said the country has a long way to go, noting that investment inflows globally have been falling since 2015, with the biggest deep seen in 2020.

On account of COVID-19, some recovery is expected in 2021 but it will be marginal, she noted.

The pandemic was a universal problem that presents some opportunities. It caused material disruption in the value chain and demonstrated the danger in concentrating manufacturing capacity in one country or region.

“But the pandemic has a materially share drop on investment flows globally. So, from 2019 to 2021 investment contracted by about 50 percent, with the bulk of that coming from Europe.

She explained that the investment levels seen in all aspects of the economy were not sufficient for the country’s economic development, noting that when we look at investment announcements, which are just an indicator and we compare them to the actual inflows for the year, they range from between 5 and 11 percent, that is the announcement relative to the actual inflows.

To reverse the global trend that existed since 2015, she opined that the country needed more collaborative, cohesive, more coherent efforts at attracting investment into Nigeria, “we need to ensure that everyone across governments is working for the same purpose and the objectives and policies have a coherence that runs through them.

“Ultimately, investment promotion and attraction are like layering, it does not come overnight. Everyone in government needs to be layering, facing the right direction and working towards the same objective.

On the book of states that was recently unveiled by the commission to redefine the volume of what we expect to see in terms of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) for economic growth, in terms of the content of the book and what it means for Nigeria, Sadiku said, “to attract investment across the country, Nigerians are expected to be aggressively selling all the states for the prospects they represent.”