Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr Okechukwu Enelamah, has revealed that the end of joint venture funding of oil activities is set to yield new level of public-private-partnership in the sector.
According to him, federal government and select international oil companies (IOCs) are putting finishing touches to a multi-billion dollar deal aimed at attracting more investments and significantly improving the nation’s oil sector.
He said “You will hear more about it this week. We are just going through the process; everybody has a stake in it including the governors. There was a meeting with the National Economic Council on the deal last Thursday. Other stakeholders will be briefed. It’s a very important programme that will bring in billions of dollars into the country”.
Enelamah hinted further that the investment drive, which involves many stakeholders in Nigeria’s economy, is a very important programme of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration which is expected to attract billions of dollars into the country.
The minister further disclosed that investment inflows into Nigeria have hit over $20 billion.
“The one we call inflows of investments is not when the money physically is here but also the commitments that have come. So if you look at the infrastructure projects that we are doing, there is a £20 billion or more infrastructure project with the China EXIM bank. It’s been signed and it’s now implemented around railways and related infrastructure.
The minister said “There is an agreement with General Electric; they have committed about $2 billion in the last one year. There are also private sector investments like Chellarams which sold a major part of their business to Kellogg’s of the United States; that deal may be a $400 million deal. There was a deal that was done by Chi Limited, the fruit juice company, with Coca-Cola, which is also in hundreds of millions of dollars.
“There is also a deal where BUA Group sold something to one of the international players which bought a part of that group; again, it is a sizable sum,’’ he said.
