Nigeria, has great potential for investors – IMF
Lower inflation rate in the country would enhance business vibrancy and greater investment inflow; hence policies need to be targeted at enhancing productivity in the country.
To this end, the regulatory authorities in Nigeria have been charged to put in place policies to bring down the inflation rate in the country and increase access to domestic funds.
The new policy direction would ensure that the nation’s economy attains target growth in 2018 for the most populous African country in 2018, taking into account the country still prides of greater opportunities for investors.
Senior Financial Sector Expert, Debt and Capital Market Instruments Division, Monetary and Capital Markets Department, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Miriam Tamene, during a visit of IMF Team to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in Abuja, added that Nigeria remains investor destination.
Tamene disclosed that at the last IMF Meetings, the Fund was pleasantly surprised to receive numerous indication of interest by investors eager to invest in Nigeria. She however stated that many of them still nurse the fear that they may not be able to retrieve their funds anytime they decide to exit.
According to her, “At the Annual meetings of IMF, we were pleasantly surprised when we saw many investors interested in the Securities Market in Nigeria. A lot of people thought that Nigeria is still investors destination, the main concerns most of them had was the fear that they might not be able to take out their money anytime they want to hence they are being very watchful.”
“Investors are interested in Nigeria, but with difficulties they had in getting their money out recently, that confidence is not there yet. It has improved though, but they are still watching. It is still so much fragile and not what they can take for granted just yet,” she added.
Acting Director General of SEC, Dr. Abdul Zubair in his remarks, said the future outlook appeared good as several initiatives had already been rolled out by the SEC which will help to grow the capital market and increase investors’ confidence, adding that in the long term, more initiatives will be rolled out to ensure that Nigerian capital market remains one of the best performing in the world.
The IMF Team were in Nigeria for consultations to get update on developments covering all the financial and other key sectors of the Nigerian economy. The report of their consultations is expected to be presented to the IMF Board in February 2018.
Stories by Bonny Amadi
