Okonjo-Iweala Leads Trade Delegation to China
From Paul Ibe in Abuja
Federal Government's renewed drive towards attracting foreign direct investment into the country is to get a boost as Finance Minister, Dr. (Mrs.) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, leads a high-level trade delegation to China next month.
The trade delegation under the aegis of the Nigeria-China Business
Investment Forum, which is scheduled for Shanghai September 5-7 is the brain-child of the Nigerian Investment Pro-motion Commission (NIPC).
The Investment Forum, the second in the series, with the first held in 2002 is being organised by the NIPC in collaboration with the Nigeria Trade Centre in Shanghai, Nigeria High Commission in Beijing and the Embassy of China in Nigeria.
Among those who would be attending the forum are state Governors like Mr. Donald Duke (Cross River), Olagunsoye Oyinlola (Osun), Alhaji Mohammed Makarfi (Kaduna), Alhaji Adamu Muazu (Bauchi) Alhaji Ali Modu Sherif (Borno) and Alhaji Adamu Aliero (Kebbi).
Representation would also come from the ministries or agencies handling sectors like oil and gas, solid minerals, ICT/financial services, power, agriculture/agro-allied and trade manufacturing and SMEs.
Information made available over the weekend from African Access, consultants to the investment forum states that support for the forum is coming from IRS Airlines, Pharmadeko Plc, ZTE (a Chinese telecom firm), CCEC (the Chinese construction that built the 8th All Africa Games Village in Abuja) and no less than 20 Nigerian entrepreneurs.
After the forum in Shanghai, the Nigerian delegation would be attending the 8th China International Fair for Investment and Trade (CIFIT) slated for Xiamen.
To this end, NIPC is working with Dear Stearns, London-based investment bankers, which has already identified the multi-million dollar companies for the matchmaking forum.
Director-General of the NIPC, Engr. Mustapha Bello, said over the
weekend that the "forum is in line with the strategic investment promotion" of the commission and the "new policy direction of the Federal Government's as encapsulated in the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) of the Obasanjo administration."
Bello said the thrust of the forum is to "meet with specific
identified multi-million dollar investment Chinese companies with the aim of wooing them to invest in Nigeria," adding that the forum is also in tandem with the priority the President accords to attracting foreign direct investment (FDI).
Coordinator of the Shanghai Forum and an Assistant Director in NIPC, Mr. Adesoji Adesugba, confirmed that all necessary arrangements towards a successful outing in Shanghai have been made by the Commission.
Adesugba, who disclosed that the investment forum could not hold last year due to the SARS epidemic, however, said that since the first forum in 2002 there has been growing influx of Chinese firms into the country.
He said the number of Chinese firms doing business in the country has increased from about 10 in 2002 to 37.
Nigeria is, after Egypt and South Africa, China's largest trading
partner in Africa. The trade volume between the two countries in 2002 reached $1.168 billion, more than a 50 per cent increase on the previous year.
With many investment opportunities in such fields as building
materials, light industrial manufacturing goods, resource exploitation, as well as its preferential investment policy and stable political climate, Nigeria is becoming an attractive destination for Chinese investment. The Chinese government recently committed $500 million in the upstream sector of the nation's oil industry, expressed her interest in the purchase of the petroleum refineries and offered another $30 million for development in the
downstream sector. The China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation has also pledged $7 billion investment in power generation, oil and gas, coal processing and agriculture in the next few years.
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