FG Committed to Attracting Investments, Says Finance Minister

• FG Committed to Attracting Investments, Says Finance Minister

The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has said the Federal Government is committed to initiatives that will attract investments into the country and boost economic development.

Ahmed, who was represented by the Director, Economic Research and Policy, Ministry of Finance, Mr Israel Igwe, at the closing session of the UK-Nigeria Climate Finance Accelerator Workshop in Lagos, expressed the Federal Government’s readiness to partner any group or stakeholder towards the transformation and economic development of the country.

She stated that there was a need for a coordinated green climate finance platform like the CFA in the economy, adding that the CFA programme would aid the development of an approach that would further ease the process of doing business in the country.

The Director, Climate Change and Clean Growth, Ricardo Energy, Mr Chris Dodwell, called on stakeholders in the financial sector to collaborate towards financing developmental projects.

Dodwell described the CFA as an innovative international initiative supported by the UK Government as well as Nigeria, Colombia and Mexico.

According to him, the programme aims to accelerate the transformation of countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions into bankable projects to attract investment from the private sector.

He described the CFA as a powerful example of creating a productive dialogue between financiers and policymakers, focused on scalable opportunities.

Dodwell said, “The CFA supports financing proposals for identified projects while ensuring that technical assistance is provided to policymakers across ministries.

“This is to ensure that planning for delivery of the NDC is better aligned with available capital from local and international markets. There is a need for dialogue and collaboration among policymakers, governments, project developers and financial experts for the actualisation and success of the initiative.”

According to a former Chairman, Nigerian Economic Summit Group, Mr Kyari Bukar, the CFA programme is the kind of investment initiative the country currently needs to boost its investment portfolios for enhanced economic growth.

He noted that the initiative would help to diversify investment portfolio of the banking sector and also transform the capital market, saying there was a driven finance community that was growing in the Nigerian economy and needed to be identified and developed.

Bukar said, “With the much-valued support of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group since October 2018, we have been engaging with private sector companies interested in undertaking ambitious low carbon development projects.

“This is with a view to creating a mature pipeline of bankable projects contributing to Nigeria’s NDC and strengthening the climate finance capacities of public and private sector institutions.”

He added that four banks – Access Bank Plc, Union Bank, Sterling and First City Monument Bank – made presentations of their proposed projects.