FG’s policies will encourage foreign companies to return – Edun

Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, has said that the policies that the Federal Government is putting in place would encourage firms to return.

Edun said this on Sunday when he appeared as a guest on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics.

He said, “The environment for them has been improved with a range of incentives. It is estimated that shortly, those measures will unlock $7bn of foreign direct investment in the oil and gas sector. So when you talk about that sector, we are talking about the kind of areas in which there has been improvement.

“Companies will always come and go. Of course, we aim to not only keep them but to have even more, come in and invest and we are sure that with the environment that we put in place, they will come.

“As for the average manufacturing firm, there is a fiscal policy and tax reform committee that has worked hard to put in place a range of measures, some of which are included in the Economic Stabilisation Package that will be considered by Mr President and the Presidential Economic Coordination Council. They are measures which will help businesses. Overall, we are in a difficult place, but the direction of travel is up and is towards improvement. And so every single day, every single month, we are looking at an improved situation economically for Nigeria.”

Some multinational firms have exited Nigeria in recent times often citing a tough operating environment.

The minister said, “Well, I think in terms of figures I have just said that there’s some billion dollars estimated is coming in from the oil sector. Another major improvement in the economic environment is the national single window project, which is an e-community, trade facilitation platform that will revolutionise what goes on at the ports, make it make them much more efficient, make them much more cost-effective and make us much more competitive in terms of our port operations.

“That too, is expected to unleash another couple of billion dollars in economic benefits. And of course, Mr President has been on the platforms around the world. Most recently, he spoke at the World Economic Forum in Riyadh. These are all about marketing. Everywhere he goes, he meets the businessmen. He has a trade and business forum to sell Nigeria to investors and the prospects are good.”

He added that the government was expecting some foreign investors from countries and it was putting in place measures to ensure the trade agreements favour all concerned.

“We are expecting trade missions, groups of businessmen interested in investing. We are expecting them from a couple of countries imminently. One of the things that we need to do on our side is that when you’re dealing with private business, you need to have in place double taxation treaties, for example, Investment Promotion and Protection treaties, for example.

“So, we are tidying up our end in terms of those very, very important agreements as far as private investment is concerned. So, the ball is in our court to a certain extent,” he said.

On making Nigeria a producing nation, Edun said that it started with infrastructure.

“Certainly, that starts with infrastructure. It starts with like I said, the port infrastructure the national single window, a relatively complex project to implement and it was launched by Mr President, thereby, signalling the political will that is behind this project. Likewise, the major infrastructure like the Abuja light rail was just commissioned. All these are facilitators that will help enormously in making it much more competitive and feasible to produce locally.

“Don’t forget the elevated food prices and the relatively expensive imports as a result of what has happened with the exchange rate. They lay the ground, and they do incentivise in a big way local production, and we expect that as we stabilise the economy and hopefully bring down interest rates, domestic investors, and local businessmen will be the first to go and grab these newfound opportunities,” he explained.

The Tinubu administration marked its first anniversary on May 29 and the ministers have been reporting their activities in the past year.