The Federal Government has unfolded plans to float a Diaspora Fund as part of strategies aimed at unlocking available capital for investment in critical sectors of the economy.

The Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga, who disclosed this at a press briefing to unveil the activities of the ministry in Lagos, Wednesday, said that the commerce and industry ministry had been expanded, refocused and rebranded to enable it play its proper role of driving the nation’s economy.

He said that the Diaspora Fund will be inaugurated in September this year, after all the approvals must have been secured.

Aganga noted that the ministry would focus on investments, sources of funds and the creation of a conducive environment for industrial growth, adding that there was enough capital within and outside the country to drive the required double-digit growth.

He said: “We have so many Nigerians in the Diaspora. The economies of many countries were built based on investments from people living abroad. We are in the process of structuring a fund, which we hope to put in place sometime in September when all the approvals are in place. That fund will be targeting those in the Diaspora.

“They will come in, bring their money and invest. According to the World Bank, in 2009, about $18.6 billion was remitted to this country by Nigerians in the Diaspora. If we take half of that, and channel it the right way into the country, we will have enough capital to invest in this country. That is just focusing only on what you already have.”

He explained that the ministry was working with key stakeholders to create a conducive environment for investment in the country, adding that the laws and policies guiding investments must be investor-friendly.

“We have commenced a review of all the laws and policies. However, most of our laws are friendly, just that investors are not even aware of these laws and policies. We want to make sure that we do not just review them but that we also have them in a form that is easily accessible to both local and international investors,” the minister noted.

Aganga pointed out that the ministry would also operationalise the Sovereign Wealth Fund, which was created partly because of investments.

He added that the N2 trillion pension fund was also “sticky, long-term money” that should be unlocked for investment in key sectors, especially infrastructure.

He said: “We will also be looking at pension funds. We are sitting on about N2 trillion. Of course, you have to make sure that the assets are safe and that the money is available to pay back pensioners in the future, but in many countries, one of the reasons they have such funds is to be able to put it back in the economy. We have been very cautious about that in the past and that was the right thing to do. But perhaps the time has come for us to say, how can we unlock it in a safe way, in a responsible way, such that it will still be available in the future to pay back pensioners?

“Pension funds all over the world are the biggest investors. If you go to the United States, the United Kingdom, most parts of the world, it is the same. And it is sticky money, long-term money. In this country, we’re looking for sticky, long-term money. Since we are looking at investing in infrastructure, it means we are looking for long-term money. And pension fund is sticky and long-term. So, we must find a way of unlocking that.”

He pointed out that “according to the World Bank, in 2009, about $18.6billion was remitted to this country by Nigerians in the Diaspora. If we take half of that, and channel it the right way into the country, we will have capital to invest in this country.

“That is just focusing on what you already have. The second area is foreign investment. We will make sure that investors have the information that they need to have on time.”

On the area of trade, Aganga said that the ministry would focus on trade imbalance between Nigeria and other countries.

“We will reactivate our export and free trade zones. We have many of them but they are not working the way they should.

We will also be developing a healthy, strong small and medium enterprise sector and make sure that they have all what they require to make them succeed,” he noted.

He said a team of experts would be raised to restructure the ministry and professionalise it “with a view to making the various departments efficient and effective. The committee should determine capacity gaps in each of the departments and recommend how these gaps can be filled.”