A consortium of foreign investors has told the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that it plans to invest $100 million in Nigeria soon.
The news was broken when the team and their Nigerian technical partners visited the CBN in Abuja.
The ten-man delegation led by Chief Tony Osagie Hicks of Anita Energy limited, told the Deputy Governor, Financial System Stability (FSS), Dr. Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, that the visit would bring massive investments in the region of $100 million to the country.
He said the investment “is expected to add value to the transformation agenda of the oil and gas infrastructure, power generation, fast speed train, telecommunications and the establishment of a Merchant Bank.
“This would be done in partnership with APEC Logic Investment Limited, an Australian funding investment partner and SINOPEC, one of the largest oil and gas corporations in China,” he added.
Moghalu told the investors that foreign investments in Nigeria could only be useful if they address skills and infrastructural development.
He said the CBN had undertaken far reaching reforms of the banking sector to make it strong, resilient and be able to serve the needs of the real economy, adding that this is a departure from the past where some individuals enriched themselves to the detriment of the economy.
He said one of the four pillars of the banking reforms, is to enhance the quality of banks and also establish financial stability through the creation of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) which absorbed the toxic assets of the deposit money banks.
He observed that the banks today have clean balance sheets and are able to lend to the economy once again.
Moghalu, said the reforms are also intended to facilitate the evolution of a healthy financial system through the new banking model that categorises them into commercial, merchant and specialised banks. The merchant banks, he said “were established to ring – fence depositors funds from trading, while the fourth ensures that the banks contribute to real economy.”
He told the team of investors that there was a meeting point between the banking reforms and the desire of the investors to establish merchant banks expected to facilitate concrete investment in Nigeria, observing that this would strengthen the relationship between the financial sector and real economy.
Moghalu assured the delegation that the CBN would provide the needed support to ensure that the investment plans bear fruits and process the banking license application, provided the requirements, were met.”
Culled from The Nation
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