By Adedapo Adesanya
President Bola Tinubu will travel to Riyadh, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, over the next few days in what has been termed an aggressive push to promote Nigeria and attract foreign direct investment (FDI) into the country.
Nigeria’s need for increased FDI has been one of the major focus of the Tinubu administration as inflow into the Nigerian economy dipped by 33 per cent to $1.03 billion in the second quarter of 2023 as against the $1.535 billion recorded in Q2 2022. It also went down by 9 per cent when compared to the $1.132 billion recorded in the first three months of 2023.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report in October, ‘other investment’ topped sources of investment, accounting for 81.3 per cent ($837.34 million) of total capital imported in the period. Higher than $435.76 million was recorded in the first quarter.
Portfolio investment, which accounted for 10.4 per cent, had $106.85 million, a decline from $649.28 million recorded in the first quarter of 2023.
For yet another quarter, FDI was the lowest with 8.4 per cent of total investment and valued at $86.03 million, an increase from $47.60 million recorded in the first quarter of 2023.
Presidential spokesman, Mr Ajuri Ngelale, who briefed State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, said the President would be attending the Saudi-Africa Summit and the Arab-African summit on November 10 and 11, 2023, respectively.
According to him, Mr Tinubu would discuss several issues of mutual concern with respect to economic ties between the regions and with respect to the issues of counter-terrorism, the environment and agriculture.
He said Mr Tinubu, in his capacity as the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), would be taking part in the summit ensuring that he is at the forefront of advocating for deepening the partnership of the two regions.
Mr Ngelale said other areas for discussion would be in terms of accelerating the level of trade and investment between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the African continent.
“Obviously, President Tinubu is very keen on ensuring that the Federal Republic of Nigeria within the context of the continent is in a position to maximally leverage on opportunities that will be afforded by the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, where we will be having a single trade market of over 1 billion Africans.
“The expectation according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa is that by the year 2050, our market here on the continent would have surpassed $29 trillion,” the presidential aide said.
