Worried by continuous exodus of investors from Nigeria to other African countries, Federal Government is poised to launch the nation’s first ever investment policy to arrest the situation before the end the year.
Disclosing this in her opening remarks at the stakeholders engagement for necessary input on the draft investment policy document in Lagos on Thursday, Dr. (Mrs) Evelyn Ngige, Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment says the new policy to be known as the Nigeria Investment Policy (NInP), when in operation, would address lapses in the nations investment drive.
Ngige who was represented by Mrs Olukemi Arodudu (Director Investment Department, at the ministry) stated that the policy document will drive investment in the country holistically through investment promotion, facilitation and sustainable development.
According to her, the Honourable Minister of Industry Trade and Investment Otunba Adebiyi Adebayo has given them a clear mandate to hosting this interactive engagement in the industry, trade and investment sector with a view to coming up with a sound policy direction to grow investment in the country.
“We have before now had snippets of the policy direction of government in our National Investment Law (NIPC Act) and in the overall framework of our International Investment Agreements regime, which was reformed in 2016 to attract the right quality of Investment required meeting the developmental aspirations of government in addition to the profit expectations of investors.
“Nigeria’s reform of its IIA regime and in particular, the reform-oriented provisions of its modernized Bilateral Investment Treaty featured by UNCTAD in the 2017 World Investment Report as examples which other developing countries could emulate. We are delighted now to come up with collation of these snippets in this NInP document,” she stressed.
She noted that this investment policy came at an auspicious time when Nigeria is focusing on economic diversification, as parties of the AFCFTA are actively negotiating the AFCFTA Investment Protocol, which is anticipated to be a reform-oriented International Investment Agreement to govern intra- African investments.
“To ensure the achievement of the objective of this Policy, the think-tank was constituted with representatives from several MDAs. Comments and inputs were also obtained from several MDAs and the document was subjected to the scrutiny of a number of development partners like UNCTAD, the World Bank and UNIDO,” She noted.
In her remarks, Director Legal Services, Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, Mrs Patience Okala, noted that the event was to reconsider and revive the investment and trade policy of Nigeria, with the aim of harmonizing it and making the nation’s investment environment more attractive.
Okala said, “Our intention is to attract into Nigeria the right quality of investment required to meet the developmental aspiration of government, and in addition, to meeting the profit expectations of investors.
“Investment promotion in this modern age where the competition in investment is highly competitive, this programe is harmonizing all government agencies that have to do with investment, commerce and trade, as well as involving all state ministries of industry and investment for clarity of purpose. We all know that investors are only willing to invest in countries where they have high rate of returns on investment. So, with this, we have to harmonize, and update as well as eliminating those obsolete policies that are seen as hindrance to investment and trade.
“So, the addition that this policy is bringing is to fortify and validate the reforms that have already been going on. We know that before now, Nigeria has snippet of investment policy with different agencies, but the NIIP Act has a chunk of it, we have in our International Investment Agreement Regime that Nigeria has reforms. We have a chunk of the investment protections that will give the investors confidence, just as we have it in the NIPC act as well, and also with the PEBEC, which is domicile with the office of the Vice President.
“This investment policy will condense all of these into one document, so that investors would be able to see in this one document, the clear policy direction of Federal Government and the quality of investment that we want to be attracted into the country.”
