Nigeria plans special economic zones to double manufacturing by 2025
Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy but it lacks a strong manufacturing base, which contributes less than 10 percent to its total gross domestic product (GDP). The country has maintained a strong currency to ensure it can keep imports pouring in, with a growing proportion coming from China.
“Project MINE’s (Made in Nigeria for Export) strategic objectives are to increase (the) manufacturing sector’s contribution to GDP to 20 percent … and generate over $30 billion annually by 2025,” the ministry of industry, trade and investment said in a statement.
The government has set up Nigeria SEZ Investment Company, which will finance industrial parks in special economic zones in the commercial capital of Lagos, southeastern state of Abia and northern state of Katsina.
The government is currently raising capital of $250 million for Nigeria SEZ Investment Company. It plans to double its equity to $500 million over four years, the ministry said.
The West African country’s manufacturing and agricultural sectors have been neglected since the 1970s oil boom, when Nigeria began making easy money from crude oil sales.
Nigeria, where the vast majority of the population lives on less than $2 a day, recently emerged from a recession but growth is fragile and the government is trying to diversify its revenue away from its reliance on oil.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who is due to start a second four-year term next month, has pledged to revive the economy and is focused on building roads and expanding the railway network to lower production costs…
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UN Africa Official Vera Songwe Calls BRI ‘Probably One of the Biggest Growth and Development Initiatives in the World’
In an interview with the Xinhua that appeared on April 10, Vera Songwe, executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), hailed the role that the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) would play in addressing Africa’s problems in infrastructure and job creation. She told Xinhua that the BRI will positively affect hundreds of millions of people in different countries, while it helps Africa develop infrastructure connectivity of varied types and creates job opportunities that are pressing issues on the continent.
“This (BRI) is probably one of the biggest growth and development initiatives that we have in the world,” the UN official said, adding that the BRI is essential to the continent. She believes that the initiative, in which many African countries “infrastructure today is one of the necessary requirements for Africa’s growth,” Xinhua reported.