NIGERIA Invest in 2012-13 - Newsdesk Media

62
the economy and finance
Sovereign wealth
The creation of a sovereign wealth fund is an attempt to make
use of Nigeria’s enormous oil wealth to the best advantage. As
Michael Dynes learns, the country’s newfound confidence to invest
in itself is a development that appeals to international investors
President Goodluck Jonathan’s
decision in May 2011 to
create the Nigerian Sovereign
Investment Authority (NSIA),
the country’s fledgling
sovereign wealth fund, represents a
wholesale break with the past.
Gone are the days when Nigeria’s
ruling elites were content merely to live
off the proceeds of one barrel of oil to
invest in niGeRia 2012-13
the next. On the contrary, NSIA has set
out to enable Africa’s biggest oil exporter
to dramatically improve the management
of its often squandered natural-resource
earnings, while laying solid foundations
for future economic prosperity.
During her first visit to Nigeria in
December 2011, International Monetary
Fund managing director Christine Lagarde
singled out the creation of the new
Nigeria’s new sovereign wealth
fund seeks to capitalise on the
country’s substantial oil riches
investment authority as one of the
landmark government decisions most
likely to boost investor confidence in the
prospects for the Nigerian economy.
Despite the dark shadows being cast
over global growth by the ongoing debt
and anaemic growth difficulties faced by
more mature economies, “with the right
vision, and the right action, today’s
global risks need not become Nigeria’s
reality”, she said.
Within months of NSIA’s creation,
Fitch, one of the leading international
credit ratings agencies, announced an
upward revision in Nigeria’s sovereign
credit rating from ‘negative’ to ‘stable’,