President Bola Tinubu has said his administration attracted $30 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) commitments within nine months.
President Tinubu noted that the government’s effort has helped boost the economy, adding that despite facing challenging times, the Nigerian economy was far from being in distress.
He stated this while addressing the 2023 Leadership Annual Conference and Award event, themed “An Economy in Distress: The Way Forward,” in Abuja on Tuesday, March 5.
Earlier, Global Economic Prospects report by the World Bank said risks of a global recession in 2024 had receded, but the fallouts of the COVID-19 pandemic, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and persistently high inflation left the growth outlook for 2024 “sluggish”, with the global economy facing its “weakest half-decade performance in 30 years.”
Already, Japan, the United Kingdom, which are members of the G7 economies, had slipped into recession at the end of 2023, as their consumer spending slowed.
Nigeria last entered an economic recession in 2020, which many analysts described as the worst in over three decades. The country has had eight recessions since its independence, the Explainer learned.
However, President Tinubu who was represented at the occassion by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said “The Nigerian economy was better than anticipated performance in the last quarter of 2023, growing by 3.46%, compared with 2.54% in the preceding quarter.”
“There is no one who looks at this data who will conclude that distressed is the accurate way to describe the Nigerian economy,” he added..
He continued that; “Since we assumed office in May 2023, we have attracted $30 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) commitments into the real sectors of the economy, including manufacturing, telecoms, healthcare, oil and gas, and others.
“Those investments have already started coming into the country. Just a few days ago, I was in Qatar on an official visit, where the Emir assured me that a senior government delegation would visit Nigeria after Ramadan.
“I have asked the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy to directly interface with the Qatari authorities to ensure that speedy progress is made.
“Capital Importation into Nigeria was up by 66 per cent in Q4 2023, reversing a 36 per cent decline in the previous quarter.
“In January 2024, the Nigerian Stock Exchange All Share Index (ASI) crossed the 100,000 points mark, its highest ever.”
