Foreign investors’ interest in Nigeria plunges by 80%

Investment announcements in Nigeria fell to $1.69bn in the second quarter of this year from $8.41bn in Q1, indicating a decline of about 80 per cent, a new report by the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission has said.

The report said the total value of investments interests in the first half of this year fell by $1.57bn to $10.11bn, compared to the second half of last year. The figure is, however, $5.05bn higher than that of the same period of last year.

An analysis of investment announcements by sectors revealed that the manufacturing sector attracted the highest investments with $5.9bn or 58 per cent.

It was followed by construction, $2.9bn (29 per cent); electricity (including gas, steam and air conditioning supply), $680m (seven per cent); information and communication, $410m (four per cent); while others recorded $210m or two per cent.

By destination, Bayelsa and Delta states attracted the most investments out of the 14 states that were listed, with $3.60bn (36 per cent) and $2.94bn (29 per cent), respectively.

They were followed by Akwa Ibom with $1.40bn (14 per cent); Lagos received $0.70bn (seven per cent) while a total of $1.45bn (15 per cent) went to the other 10 states.

The report also showed that domestic investors made the highest contribution of $3.29bn or 33 per cent of the total investment announcements; $1.40bn (14 per cent) emanated from Morocco; $950m (nine per cent) from China; $640m (six per cent) from UK; and other sources accounting for $3.82bn or 38 per cent.

The NIPC said Nigeria received 29 projects across 14 states in H1 2021, compared to 34 projects across 16 states and the Federal Capital Territory in H1 2020.

Further analysis of the report showed that in the past five years, investment announcements recorded in H1 2021 decreased by $9.23bn from the $19.34bn recorded in H1 2017.

The Executive Secretary, NIPC, Yewande Sadiku, had recently said that the commission had entered into series of collaboration with the private sector to unlock potential investments in the country.

According to her, there are huge investment opportunities in agriculture, transportation, solid minerals and manufacturing sectors of the economy and the government is working to improving the country’s rating in the area of ease of doing business.