NIPC forecasts low Foreign Direct Investment for 2020

The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) says the country will witness a drop in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in 2020 as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The Executive Secretary of NIPC, Ms Yewande Sadiku, made this known during an online (webinar) knowledge sharing session with State Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs).

A statement by the Commission on Tuesday in Abuja, said Sadiku explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed from a public health crisis to an economic one.

She said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had already projected that the global economy would contract by -3per cent in 2020 and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) estimated that global FDI would fall by 30 – 40per cent in 2020/2021.

“The Nigerian economy and FDI flows are expected to be similarly affected, presenting a new challenge which requires coordinated action by Nigeria’s IPAs,” she said.

While saying the government needs to push out more friendly policies to attract a high volume of investments, the NIPC boss stressed the need to encourage more Nigerians to invest in the country.

On their part, the states’ investment promotion agencies used the platform to exchange ideas on how they are responding to the needs of the investing communities in their domains.

The participants noted the need for greater collaboration between NIPC and State IPAs to drive increased investor interest in Nigeria.

The AUTHORITY reports that NIPC last month reported that 4.81billion dollars were tracked as total investment commitments in Nigeria for Quarter 1 of 2020, representing about 62percent less than the value in the corresponding period in 2019 (12.7billion dollars).

The Commission blamed the drop on tracked investment commitments to the coronavirus pandemic.