The International Finance Corporation (IFC) had invested a sum of $2bn across different sectors in Nigeria. This was according to a statement from Regional V.P. for Africa, Sergio Pimenta. Pimenta made this statement at the recent Lagos BoI-IFC Conference on Empowering Futures, where participants convened to devise concepts and programs aimed at enhancing financial accessibility, export credit, partial credit guarantees, and other risk-sharing financing arrangements.
Pimenta stated that the investment in Nigeria, which stood at $2bn, is the second largest investment in Africa, by IFC. According to the Regional V.P., the IFC investment in Nigeria is meant to cover the financial markets, manufacturing, infrastructure, and trade finance.
He is of the opinion that IFC’s work increases the adoption of green energy and universal energy access, supports agribusiness and manufacturing to improve food security, meets domestic needs, expands exports, and promotes digitization. It also facilitates increased access to finance for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises through financial intermediaries.
According to the corporation’s boss, there is a vital role to be played by Nigeria’s financial sector in financial inclusion, access to finance, and support to trade. However, according to Sergio Pimenta, the country had recently embarked on legislative reforms to further boost its financial infrastructure. These reforms include accelerating institutional, and behavioral change amidst official borrowers and lenders across Nigeria.
Industrialization is equally important to maximizing Nigeria’s economic potential. Naturally, Nigeria suffers a variety of difficulties, just like many other nations. These include trade and financial sector problems like shortages of foreign exchange and restricted access to financing, infrastructure limitations, a lack of economic variety, and uncertainty in the global economy,” he stated.
In the meantime, Dr. Olasupo Olasuyi, the Managing Director of the Bank of Industry, announced a collaboration between the development banks to enhance export credit and financing availability to support the nation’s industrialization push.
“This conference, which brings together leaders from the financial sector and other crucial sectors of the economy to discuss how to advance Nigeria’s industrial sector, is very important and timely,” Olasuyi stated.
