The Federal Government has pledged commitment to bring investment to different sectors of the economy so as to reduce Nigeria’s reliance on borrowing.

Executive Secretary, Nigeria Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), Saratu Umar, disclosed this to State House Correspondents after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. 
The NIPC boss said President Buhari was disposed to supporting the move to strengthen the investment drive of Nigeria, and willing to do all to ensure the country’s investment drive gets traction. 

“So, I’m very encouraged and I have been given a lot of energy now to continue what we are doing at the commission that would help the investment promotion drives of Nigeria. As you know, we have the Africa Continental Free Trade Area agreement now in force, and the FDI will now try to locate anywhere on the African Continent as a signatory to this agreement. 

“The aim for us as a nation is to ensure that we channel FDI to Nigeria, so that we can facilitate import substitution because when we facilitate import substitution, we will be able to conserve Forex, and then also channel investments into the export sectors of the country,” Umar said.

She stressed that, “there’s a challenge with foreign exchange and supplying everything, we believe once we do that, the play of import substitution and forex generation will also help the value of the naira and make life easier for Nigerians.”
Umar added that the Commission believes that once it is able to bring investment to different sectors of the economy, the burden of debt on the country would decline.

According to her, “some of the reliance we have had on debt will be reduced because investments will now be able to play in certain sectors that would minimise the rate.”

The Executive Secretary said she was in the Presidential Villa to brief Mr. President, being the chief investment promoter of the nation, on the different initiatives the Commission was handling. 
Umar added: “The President needs to have a briefing on the investment ecosystem and the plans the NIPC has gone ahead to revamp the investment drive of the country.
“I have briefed him on the ongoing development of the Nigerian Investment Promotion master plan that takes into cognisance the different sectoral master plans that have been developed by Nigeria. 

“We have the master plan for agriculture, solid mineral and there are a number of blueprints and policies that the government has developed, in addition to the national development plan that we all know has been developed by the country. 
“So, we are looking at the different sectors that are stated in these different plans, and then deriving our own investment drive along those sectors so that we go for targeted specific investment drive, targeting different countries and not replicating those countries, as well as investors as well.”