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Olusegun Aganga: Nigeria to be “The Investment Destination”, Investors Already Planning Refineries

By on December 17, 2011

Whilst attending a World Trade Organization summit in Geneva last week, the Minister of Trade and Investments, Olusegun Aganga, spoke on Russia joining the WTO, and more importantly on Nigeria’s drive to diversify her economy.

Responding to questions via telephone from Bloomberg correspondent last week on similarities between Russia and Nigeria’s economy, the minister stated, “we [Nigeria] are the 7th largest producer of crude oil, we have the eight largest reserves of gas, for example, but our petrochemical industry is not where it should be. So there’s a lot of emphasis on the petrochemicals industry. We are looking at refinery plants, we are looking at fertilizer plants, we are looking at chemicals, we are looking at the plastics industry. And already we are beginning to see encouraging signs here; we are seeing a number of investors coming to the country, planning to invest in fertilizer plants, and in petrochemical plants across the board. So I think that is one way we intend to diversify the economy. This strategy going forward is to build our economy in areas where we have comparative and competitive advantage. There are three main areas, one is in the area of oil and gas, the other is in the area of agriculture, and the third is in the area of solid minerals where today we have at least 33 different solid minerals in commercial quantities.”

Responding to questions on corruption in Nigeria being parallel to the situation in Russia and what the Nigerian government is doing about corruption in order to make Nigeria a more attractive investment destination.

The minister responded saying corruption affects almost every country, citing the country’s improved rankings on the Transparency International index of corrupt countries. He also cited EFCC and ICPC as agencies, “completely empowered” to tackle corruption issues. “Perception is important to us and [corruption] is one of the main areas we are addressing in part of our Investment Climate reforms.”