- Job centres to be created nationwide
The Federal Government’s effort to attract investment into the country seems to be yielding fruit.
The government on Friday said that it has attracted over $30 billion in investment into the country.
The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite, who disclosed this said there are commitments to the said investment.
The Minister also clarified the reported claims of Shell Petroleum’s exit, saying that on the contrary, Shell is investing more in the Nigeria economy.
She also touched on the controversial Memorandum of Understanding the country recently signed with the United Kingdom.
She spoke at a Ministerial briefing in Abuja, coordinated by the Ministry of Information and National Orientation.
She added, “We have received a lot of investments. Over $30 billion commitments and pledges from the oil and gas free zone alone, last week some came in and committed $10 billion
“We have more investment pledges coming from other interested parties, we are hosting delegations from different countries and as they come they come with investment pledges, none of these investments would come in if President Ahmed Bola Tinubu had not taken away the double subsidies that were bleeding the economy.
She also revealed that the $14 billion investment commitment from India has come in.
She said the last tranche of $7 billion came in recently.
On Shell Petroleum, the Minister said, “I hosted the Managing Director of Shell who came to see me and explained to me the investment plan of Shell. I can tell you they are not leaving, they are rather expanding and increasing their investment in Nigeria. They are selling their offshore assets and increasing their investment in gas and in onshore assets.”
The minister further stressed, “We got investment commitment from even existing industries, Coca-Cola pledged, Unilever made a pledge including other industries that have made pledges to stay and to continue to stay in Nigeria by deepening their investment.”
She went on, “With the increase in investment comes jobs, job growth, job opportunities, economic growth, and this is what we are also experiencing. From the oil and gas and free zone alone we have created at least 5 million jobs.”
Other initiatives put in place by the ministry, according to the minister include creating the catalytic investment unit to support the investment drive into the country by establishing the diaspora investment initiative.
She also said that the ministry is “partnering with the Nigeria diaspora commission and multinational institutions like AFREXIM, African Development Bank, Bank of Industry BOI, even Ministry of Finance Incorporation MOFI to find a way to de-risk investments coming into the real sector of the economy.”
She also said job centers would be created across the country.
She said, “We started with the one in Abuja with all the facilities donated by SMEDAN, a full warehouse.
“We have an agreement with all the manufacturers and the industrialists to list all the opportunities just mentioned so Nigerians can have access to these opportunities.
“It is the private sector that creates jobs, industrial, economic growth is led by the private sector, for everyone needing a job in the country, we are creating the job centre. It serves as a facility for training and empowering people.”
She also said that the administration is “committed to removing all bottlenecks hampering the ease of production in industries. If you don’t export you become a warehouse for receiving other people’s input.
“For Nigeria to be competitive we must deepen our trading, and increase global access to the market.”
Uzoka-Anite also revealed that going forward earnings by exporting firms must be ascertained before getting letters of credit from the government.
She said, “Without foreign exchange, we cannot come out of the current FX challenges that we have. I engaged the oil and gas sector, given the mandate from the President, we issued them an additional requirement to show their export proceeds, export permits, licenses, and are given by the Industry Trade and Industry ministry.
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“We also engage the non-oil and gas exporters to do the same and they are complying. We are going to witness an influx of our export proceeds coming back in. We will ensure that everything being exported is being repatriated back.”
On the N200 billion support for SMEs, she said verification is ongoing and monies will be released to beneficiaries.
She said, “President Ahmed Bola Tinubu made available N200 billion as an intervention to SMEs, the recipients are currently undergoing a verification exercise and working with SMEDAN and BOI to start releasing that fund to them which is part of increasing access to financing, access to cheaper capital.”
She added, “We are in the process of signing different MOUs with different countries who are interested in the jobs we have here in Nigeria. “We promise one million jobs in five years, we assure you we will do more than one million, getting one million people in Nigeria is not difficult but we want to make sure they have the right opportunities and will not be taken advantage of when they go abroad.”
On the MoU with the UK, she said it did not include lawyers from the UK practicing in Nigeria.
Clarifying the issue, she said, “We recently signed the enhanced trade and investment partnership with the United Kingdom.
“There is a misconception of UK lawyers coming to Nigeria to practice, there was nothing like that in the agreement, that portion of the agreement under legal service is still being negotiated and the Ministry of Justice is leading the negotiation on it. The Ministry of Justice leads the trade negotiation and they go exchanging ideas.
“We did not in any way agree that lawyers in Nigeria will practice in the UK or lawyers from the UK will practice in Nigeria, in the issue of practicing you have to go through the law of the country and we have not gotten there yet, we are still at the initial stage of green areas to negotiate.”