Nigeria, US Collaborate to Promote Govt, Private Sector Partnership

Nigeria and the United States of America are collaborating to forge a closer partnership between the government and the private sector.

The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), Ms. Yewande Sadiku, said building a relationship and collaborating with the US would bring the government and private sector together.

Sadiku, who spoke at the dinner of Nigeria-USA Bi-national commission in Abuja, described the job of investment promotion as “something you continue to hit at”.

According to her, “in reality, in terms of the gaps that we are trying to fill in Nigeria is equivalent of building a dream.

“We should have built infrastructure many years ago but we didn’t build it then but now there’s no government that meets infrastructure requirements by itself, Everywhere, government works with the private sector, federal or state but actively with the private sector.”

Sadiku added that the collaboration with the US would allow Nigeria to leverage particular areas.
“The focus is priority sectors that the government has defined in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan so its agriculture, power not just power distribution but also power generation especially in the context of gas power, real estate, manufacturing especially light manufacturing, solid minerals.

She revealed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) would be signed, which is a commercial and investment dialogue between Nigeria and the USA that is designed to bring government and the private sector together to rob minds on the challenges, identify them and address such.

At the dinner, the Minister of Industry,Trade and Investment, Dr Okechukwu Enelamah observed that the outcome of Nigeria’s recession experience include learnings to improve and have a more sustainable approach to resolving and translating this experience into opportunities, he welcomed the collaboration between the US and Nigeria under the BNC and said this will further foster trade and investment relations between the two countries.

The President of the America Business Council and Managing Director of GE, Lazarus Angbazo, in his goodwill message stressed the business opportunities that Nigeria presents and is convinced that in Nigeria there’s a genuine openness and optimism to collaborate with the USA. He added that US is a national partner for Nigeria and one with long standing commitment to the country and as such strengthening of this bi-national relationship portends a positive development for business operating in Nigeria.

Also speaking is Margaret Olele, CEO of the council noted that American Business Council is committed to working with partners- government and stakeholders to drive sustainable socio-economic reforms and improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria.

“In the coming weeks, American Business Council will release the results of the first comprehensive business survey of US firms operating in Nigeria which will demonstrate significant impact that US trade and investment has on this economy” She added.

 

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