Sambo Woos US Investors To Nigeria

Vice President Namadi Sambo has called on American investors to take advantage of the abundant opportunities in Nigeria and invest in agric-business.

Sambo made the call at the Agriculture Investment forum organised by the Embassy of Nigeria in Washington in conjunction with the Corporate Council for Africa.

He said government’s current focus on agriculture was to improve the value chain by moving away from production of raw materials for export, to agro-processing.

According to him, this is aimed at achieving self-sufficiency, especially, in food production.

“Much effort is concentrated towards large scale production of such staples as rice, cassava, sorghum, including opportunities in livestock, fisheries, maize, soya beans, palm oil, cocoa and cotton among others.

“Our current transformation agenda has agriculture as one of its major drivers,’’ he said

The Vice President said that this was based on government’s understanding of the importance of agriculture not only in ensuring food security and poverty alleviation, but also its abundant potential for employment generation.

Sambo explained that the government had consistently bemoaned the current dependence on petroleum as the major source of revenue to the government.

According to him, stringent efforts are currently being made to diversify the economy in order to have a basket of financial resources to fund the government’s development agenda.

“It is my desire that the outcome of the Forum will result in fostering stronger relations between our two countries.

“I have no doubt, that the forum, dovetailing into the Annual Conference of the U. S Exim Bank, would provide opportunities for American investors and their Nigerian counterparts to explore possibilities for long lasting partnerships,’’ he said.

Sambo disclosed that the government had taken a number of reforms to make Nigeria investor friendly.

He stressed that both the federal and state governments have taken further steps to entrench the enabling environment for foreign direct investment.

He said 10 new thermal plants that would provide additional 5,000MW to the national grid were being constructed.

Similarly, Sambo said, contract for the construction of a new 700MW Zungeru Hydro power project would soon be awarded while the design and documentation for the construction of the 2600MW Mambilla hydro power plant would be completed by the third quarter of  2012.