Lagos gets N5bn FDI in three months

The Lagos State government has recorded over N5 billion foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first quarter of 2016, Dr. Yakub Olajide Bashorun, Permanent Secretary, Office of Overseas Affairs and Investment has said.

Dr. Bashorun made this disclosure at the weekend during a one-day sensitisation of MDAs on the mandate of the Office of Overseas Affairs and Investment in Lagos.

Speaking on the investment profile of Lagos State, the erstwhile Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives said: “The investment projection for the state is very high. In the first quarter for instance, we have done about N5billion worth of investment into Lagos, creating hundreds of jobs for Lagosians.

“That is over 50 per cent of what has come in to the country this year alone.  So you can imagine what will still be done with this kind of sensitisation workshop with everybody on the same page, whether in agriculture, in power, in transportation, health, medical tourism, ICT, education, entertainment and tourism sectors. So these are areas that are huge.”

Read also: Oil prices rise above budget 2016 benchmark by $4.29

Continuing, he said: “We will continue to monitor with aftercare because it is not only enough to ensure that investment comes to Lagos, we want to also ensure that investment is thriving. If they are doing very well, how can they do even better? Can they open more branches? If they are not doing well, is it that something went wrong along the way? Is it in terms of implementation of agreement? There has to be somebody who is working out the interest of everybody and that is what we’re doing.”

The Office of Overseas Affairs and Investment, otherwise known as Lagos Global is a new parastatal that was established in May last year at the inception of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration.

While explaining the core mandate of the agency, Prof. Ademola Abass, Special Adviser, Office of Overseas Affairs and Investment, in a presentation titled: ‘Promoting FDI in Lagos: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,’ said: “We’re in the investment arm of the Lagos State government. Since the creation of this office, I can tell you they are in hundreds and if the trend continues with what we have seen, I will be talking in terms of thousands.”

The former university don, who spoke on plans by the state government to turnaround the fortunes of the state said: “Lagos needs a lot of infrastructural development, especially with our transportation. For a city of 22 million people, you cannot rely on a mono transport system.

“One of the things we’re trying to do in Lagos is to take the ferry service a lot more serious than we have always done. So we’re looking into investment in the transportation area. This has become inevitable because the oil revenue has been nose-diving. We’re trying to look into and develop our agricultural resources. In terms of health we want to make sure we develop our hospital infrastructure to be able to stop our people from going to spend millions on medical tourism. We want to invest on energy. Lagos today is in need of about 4, 000 megawatts to function but we have just around 1, 000 mega watts. So we have less than one quarter. So these are the key sectors we’re interested in Lagos state.”

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