General Electric, a United States’ electrical industrial firm, on Monday announced its plans to invest about $150m (N45.8bn) in Nigeria next year.
The group said on its website that “There are development projects where we are investing,” the Chief Executive Officer, General Electric in Africa, Jay Ireland, told the Financial Times Africa Summit in London. The GE said it would also invest in oil and gas industry projects.
Growth in Nigeria, whose economy is in recession for the first time in more than 20 years due to low oil prices, has been stunted for decades by a lack of investment in its road and rail network.
The Irish group added that the investment in Nigeria was part of a plan to spend $2bn in Africa in coming years even though the $150m investment falls short of the sum the Federal Government had said the GE would invest.
It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari,had on his Independence Day speech, said the GE was “investing $2.2bn in a concession to revamp, provide rolling stock, and manage” some of the country’s railway lines.
The GE, which has operated in Africa Offshore companies set up in Mauritius for over 100 years, had last month restated its commitment to invest $2bn in facility development, skills training, and sustainability initiatives across the continent by 2018. The company restated the commitment at the 2016 US-Africa Business Forum.
