June 21, (THEWILL) – Nigeria is ready to explore opportunities for Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) to improve the nation’s economy at the Global Finance Pact Summit In France, the Presidency said.
Special Adviser to the President on Special Duties, Communication and Strategy, Dele Alake, made this known in a statement on Wednesday.
THEWILL reports that President Bola Tinubu, on Tuesday, left Nigeria for Paris, France, to join other world leaders on June 22-23, in the review and signing of a New Global Financial Pact that places vulnerable countries on a priority list for support and investment.
Alake said, “The essence of this trip is to network as much as feasible, as much as is practicable. The President wants to network with international finance corporations, institutions, and countries that are well healed that would facilitate or that could facilitate direct foreign investment into Nigeria.
“Don’t forget that Mr. President has taken some very bold steps in the area of economy, in the area of social engineering in the last few weeks, and particularly with reference to the unification of the multiple exchange rates, which has caused very positive multiplier effect.
“However, in the short term, we have noticed and expected that there will be a slight spike in the demand and then that would affect the value of the Naira vis-à-vis the dollar.
“So, apart from the immediate, short and long-term positive effects of that unification policy, there could be a need for an injection of direct foreign exchange into the economy to shore up the value of the naira while market forces stabilize. And in the short run or medium term, there is going to be when the effects of this policy begin to mature.”
Alake, who enumerated the advantages of foreign investments, further stated that already, some international Corporations are willing to do business with Nigeria.
“However, with all of these, you still need a direct foreign injection of foreign exchange to build or complement the domestic policies. That is the essence of this meeting and is a global summit and there are several heads of state of developed societies that Mr. President’s policies in the last three weeks really have encouraged these foreign nations and investors to become more interested in the affairs of Nigeria in shoring up the economy of Nigeria.
“So, a lot of them are quite interested, so many of them have even indicated interest to meet with Mr. President during the summit. We have already had a meeting with the President structuring some of these meetings with heads of state.
“At the last count about three, four different heads of state of developed countries have indicated willingness to meet with him, have a chat with him and explore areas of cooperation on the economy, on agriculture, on other areas that are salient to the development of Nigeria’s economy. That is generally the essence of this meeting.”
He added that the United States, France, Switzerland and so many international financial institutions are willing to see him.
“Some of them we are structuring either for tomorrow or Friday to meet with him with his team, and then consolidate some of the issues and provide more encouraging rhetoric for those people to come in and invest in Nigeria.
“Don’t forget that in the recent past, a lot of international investors are excited with Nigeria because of the restrictive currency policies that we had, which made business to be so stifled. But now that these have been liberalized, and they are freed from market forces, in the short run, we will need very comprehensive and robust direct foreign investment into the country. So, we are very hopeful that some of these meetings he is going to have will come to fruition and will bear very positive fruits and yield results for Nigeria,” he added.
