ERGP: Nigeria hopes to  attract $25bn in foreign investments

 By Nduka Uzuakpundu
Muhammadu Buhari, the President of Nigeria, has reiterated his administration’s commitment to a successful execution of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).
At the launch of the Focus Labs, on Tuesday, at State Banquet Hall, in Abuja, he described the labs as closed-door investment platforms, whose profile for economic growth and transformation would be sharpened by the restored stability that had been achieved in the foreign exchange market and the significant progress made in the agricultural sector, where millions of naira had been saved and many jobs created.
It is the Buhari administration’s ambition to claw in $25 billion in private investments, in the interim, from the various aspects of the Focus Labs, so as to finance projects in the road, rail, air, oil, mining, agriculture, power, and, amongst others, information and communication technology sectors, so as to reduce the population of the unemployed.
The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma said, on the occasion, that the Buhari administration also aimed at achieving about 4.5 per cent in economic growth by the end of 2018 and, come, 2020, 7 per cent.
He said that the Focus Labs, informed by the Malaysian model, were intended for the transformation of the Nigerian economy from a consuming to one that produces; an economy that exports, in place of import; one that is constructively diversified and less dependent on crude oil, which is quite vulnerable to the inherent and unpredictable vagaries associated with the product in the international market.