Microsoft Word – Harvard help sheet The Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) reported a 67 percent decline in investment in H1 2020, compared to H1 2019. The decline saw investment fall to US$5.06 billion compared to US$15.15 billion in the preceding year2. Top destination sectors include Transportation & Storage (39%) as well as Information & Communication (32%) sectors. However, the overall weak economic activity in top donor countries like United States of America (USA), which account for 43 percent of inflows contributed to the decline. Understandably, the lockdown measures and low oil price have slowed existing investment prospects and caused multinational enterprises to reassess new projects which will affect development. Going forward, investment is likely to continue to decline given that these conditions are unlikely to give way until the pandemic ends. Nevertheless, the NIPC should use the pandemic as an opportunity to promote investment in traditional and new opportunity areas including health, food and agriculture, and tech-related sectors. Furthermore, the NIPC should develop an online one-stop shop for investors in the absence of inter-country travel.
August 17, 2020
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 30)
Related
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 43)
The IMF World Economic Outlook report, indicates a downward revision for Nigerias 2017 economic growth. Specifically, growth has been projected to expand by 0.6 percent relative to the 1.1 percent earlier projected. The decrease is attributable to sharp growth slowdown experienced in Nigeria, occasioned by prevailing constraining factors (crude oil production disruptions, Forex and power shortages, and weak investor confidence). The outlook, which does not seem optimistic, reveals Nigerias further vulnerability to potential external and internal risks/shocks.
Nigeria Economic Update (Issue 15)
Nigerian
Naira depreciated by 1.2 percent at the parallel foreign exchange market
between April 7, 2017 and April 14, 2017. The naira exchanged at N410/$ as
against N405/$ the previous week. Despite the CBNs weekly dollar
sales to BDCs ($20,000 to each BDC in the review week) and spot market sales of
$100 million to SMEs, the nairas depreciated in the week. This may
likely be attributable to speculative motives (on the basis that speculators
likely anticipate that the CBN forex interventions may not be sustainable).