Nigeria is Now the Best Investment Destination in Africa, Okonjo-Iweala Says

“Nigeria is now the best investment destination in Africa. With a foreign reserve of nearly 50 billion dollars, stable exchange rate, strong banking sector and massive human/natural resources, Nigeria has become one of the most attractive investment destinations in the world. Nigeria is currently the largest economy in West Africa, second largest in Africa with potential to become the largest in the next five years. Nigeria has succeeded in bringing down inflationary rate to a single digit of 8.6 per cent; it enjoys a stable exchange rate,” Dr. Ngozi Okojo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Minister for the Economy, said as she hosted the Lord Mayor of the City of London, Mr. Roger Gifford, on an investment visit to Nigeria. She continued, “The government has made frantic efforts to reduce infrastructural problems that were inherited from past administrations. The government is partnering with China to revive the rail sector and rehabilitate roads to ease movement of goods.” “The power problem will soon be a thing of the past, as government has taken a bold step to privatise the power sector, which has almost been completed. There is serious re-modeling of the country’s airports to meet international standards.” “Due to past experiences, Nigeria is now allergic to borrowing, and has also reduced its domestic debt to 19 per cent and external debt to two per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).” “Despite the huge success the country has recorded in the macro-economic sphere, there are other challenges staring us as a nation. They include unemployment, poor infrastructure, corruption, bad governance and power. But Nigeria is not relenting in tackling these challenges through several reforms in various sectors to rank among the eight strongest economies in the world in no distant time.”