NIGERIA Invest in 2012-13 - Newsdesk Media

Improving Nigeria’s electricity network is a main priority for the
government and for major manufacturers of electricity products,
enabling the country to become one of the world’s leading economies
Nigeria Vision 2020
Nigeria’s natural resources are vast and underexploited, but the
government’s programme of deregulation and privatisation means
there are equally huge opportunities open to investors from all
over the world. The result could bring the country’s ambition of
becoming a top 20 economy by 2020 closer, says Graeme Burton
On the surface, Nigeria
ought to be bubbling with
prosperity. In addition to
vast oil and gas reserves,
the country has plentiful
supplies of low-sulphur-content,
good-quality coal, as well as recently
discovered coking coal suitable for iron
and steel production, plentiful supplies
of iron ore, and reserves of manganese,
tin, limestone, lead, zinc, gold, silver
and rare-earth minerals.
It is with this consideration that
the government has committed to the
previous administration’s declaration
of intent to place Nigeria among the
world’s 20 largest economies by 2020.
The Business Support Group, an
initiative of the Secretariat of the
National Steering Committee of Vision
2020 (NV2020), is intended to
engender private-sector support for
the NV2020 process. Its priorities are
to generate publicity, mobilise resources
from the private sector, organise
fundraising activities to support
NV2020 and provide technical and
financial support.
With two major rivers – the Niger
and the Benue – running through the
the economy and finance 69
country, it should be little surprise that
arable land accounts for one-third of
Nigeria’s 900,000 square kilometres of
land, producing corn, rice, sorghum,
cocoa, peanuts, cotton, palm oil and
yams, as well as rubber, among many
other agricultural products. The country
also has plans to use those rivers and
their tributaries to generate as much
as 67,000 Megawatts (MW) of
hydroelectric power by 2030.
What more could an ambitious
nation need? Unfortunately, with the
exception of oil and, until recently, gas
much of the country’s resources – both
on the ground and underground – have
remained underexploited.
Now, however, Nigeria’s economy
is turning. “The oil sector is the main
driver of the economy, accounting for
more than 90 per cent of exports and
over 80 per cent of government revenue,
invest in niGeRia 2012-13