Nigeria and the United States have plans to leverage President Barack Obama’s $14 billion-investment pledge in Africa for effective financing structure for infrastructure in Nigeria.
Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment Olusegun Aganga, and U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker agreed during a bilateral meeting at the just-concluded U.S.-Africa summit that increased investment in the area of infrastructure would further improve the Nigerian business environment, and that Obama’s focus on power was particularly encouraging.
While the two countries agreed to work on the financial structure for infrastructure within the next few weeks, Pritzker noted that U.S. companies were eager to do business in Nigeria due to the ongoing reforms in critical sectors, adding that they could also leverage U.S. export assistance facilities scattered around the country.
Aganga, who spoke to journalists in Washington, D.C. during the summit, said, apart from the investment commitments and memoranda of understanding that were signed, most investors agreed that Nigeria had the most robust, clear and friendly policies on power that other African countries should try to emulate.
He said, “This means we already have an enabling environment that will encourage more investors to come and invest in the sector. In fact, what these investors were saying was that most of our sectoral policies, which we have put in place, already have encouraged them to come and invest in Nigeria.
“That was why when we met with the American automotive manufacturing giant, Ford, during the summit, they said that they wanted to come to Nigeria as quickly as possible because of our new automotive policy. If the new auto policy was not in place, Ford would not be talking about coming to invest in Nigeria. That is the value you get as a country when you have a proper industrial plan and well-articulated sectoral policy in place.”
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