Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment Jumoke Oduwole announced on Tuesday that the federal government is working diligently to attract $50.8 billion in investments to the country.
The minister attributed this effort to trips made by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to other countries.
Oduwole explained the ministry’s role in tracking investment announcements, emphasizing the importance of ensuring that the investment announcements made by the President come to fruition.
She added that the ministry will continue to monitor the investment flow from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The minister disclosed this during the 2025 ministerial press briefing in Abuja.
She said, “I will just mention the tracking of Mr. President’s investments. Someone asked me once, I think it was France 24, that someone had put out a statistic that the Nigerian economy needs $50 billion to be steady in terms of foreign exchange.
“I said funny, we did the number and as at November, Mr. President’s international trips had generated $50.8billion in announcement.
Now where the ministry comes in is tracking those announcements and making sure it comes to fruition.”
She noted that the ministry is also following up on disclosure from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) as the job of the ministry is to handle those businesses to a more deregulatory and undemocratic bottleneck, to also share information with transparency and efficiency in public service delivery.
She said, “The government is deepening trade relations with five key countries and repositioning Nigeria as African Continent Free Trade Area ACFTA trade champion, while commencing the review of our trade policy which is the timeline of a major intervention.
“In November, the AFCTA council of ministers met and immediately Nigeria registered its interest in digital trade championship. We also had ministerial consultation with exporters, which is the priority push of this administration. I want to assure that tangible concrete work has been ongoing”.
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“Again in November, we had a successful World Trade Organization (WTO) trade review, this happens every seven years. It is an opportunity for Nigeria to partake in. This is an avenue where you hear what the world says about your country and economy. Nigerians had a lot of questions that were answered judiciously during the meeting.
“We took that information and have been using it to adjust our trade review in Nigeria.
“Outsourcing of services is an area where the government is prioritizing because Nigerian youths can stay right in the country and earn dollars. We are talking about privatizing not only customer service but all aspects.
“Just last week, we were at the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I took fourteen deals to share to the tune of $5billion, different deals. There was a lot of interest from investors in all the deals. This was encouraging as we will continue to attract investments in that regard”.
On special economic zones, the minister said, “We have been working with the authority especially on the tax bill. This is after engaging with stakeholders like the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), operators of the free zones, enterprises in the free zones, and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) to come up with a position on the tax bill.
She noted that Free Zones are a tool for industrialization and for trade, even in manufacturing, and it has worked in many places across the world.
“We have all aligned and made our suggestions to the National Assembly, which will help with investments, ensuring the country’s Custom territory is well guarded with no distortion.
“On trade facilitation, the national single window project has been launched and right now in the implementation stage. President Ahmed Bola Tinubu inaugurated it last year, and a lot of background work is ongoing. Finally, Nigeria is going to have a national single window digital infrastructure, which will eventually increase trade.
On bilateral and multilateral trade, she noted that “the President has ordered that the country should be investment ready even to the legal framework.”
She spoke on rejection of exported sesame seed, how Nigerian sesame seed is being questioned knowing that it is one of the leading products, the intervention of the government in the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), how the challenge was excavated and engagement with stakeholders in agriculture, Japanese government to solve the problem for the farmers because it is a key non-oil export
“Nigerian economy is diversified” she said, “what is not diversified is our foreign exchange earnings, all the things needed in terms of market access is building trust.